As an instructor and writer, I try to provide something for everyone. For those who are only happy ﬁnding fault, I have generously included a few errors to meet this need. I also have a sense of humour and refuse to curb that tendency just to appear more scholarly. Bagua is too serious a subject to not take a light-hearted approach to the training. If there were fewer humourless obsessives and fanatics in the world today—there would be no need to study the martial side of Baguazhang or any of the combative arts!

She can be reached at anjelapopova@hotmail. my colleagues in the WTBA. If in the last decade I have ﬁnally begun to understand what “internal” can mean in the the context of bagua. in particular.
(http://www. Some of those email discussions were reworked for this handbook. Jeff Campbell. and Stephane Trepanier for their patience and persistence in travelling along this difﬁcult road with me. Michael Babin Ottawa.com. and encouragement. I would also like to thank Kaia Knightingale front cover. Good bagua instructors are rare. for the pleasure I have had from our correspondence in the last few years on bagua and a variety of internal arts subjects. example.Acknowledgements
A special thanks is due to Erle Montaigue.ca)
for the original artwork for the
A special note of thanks to Anjela Popova and Vassili Bykov for their work on the layout and design of this book and to Anjela. 2004
. but so are good students.kaia. Thanks to Ron Beier and John Kavanagh. for allowing me to use the photograph she took. Canada February 21. it has been largely due to his instruction. I would like to thank all those that have studied with me since 1994 but particularly Sean Kelly.

as a French Canadian in early 1960s Canada. the development of twisting strength and whole body power. what is Bagua about?… Well. both for healing and martial purposes. Although times have changed and more people than ever before know that such a discipline exists. He couldn’t understand why I then laughed as hard as I did when he asked his question and looked surprised when I explained that at his age. few have any understanding of how hard it can be to do any traditional version of that art really well. walking at a moderate pace is one of the best exercises for the body in terms of strengthening the cardiovascular system without straining the joints the way that running can. much less known what it meant. Walking by yourself or with partners can be a very beautiful experience and very demanding physically. which can help to strengthen and heal the emotions and the spirit. like any traditional internal art. sudden stops and changes of pace and direction. swooping and lifting actions. as well as the use of the mind to create intent. Good bagua. full of graceful twisting movement. it is about whatever each individual instructor brings to it within the broad framework that runs the gamut from being a harshly effective martial system that builds health through hard work and efﬁcient body mechanics to New Age nonsense in which walking in circles while chanting neo-taoist prayers and wearing archaic costumes is the whole of the practice. It is also important to remember that many of the early tactics were
. The solo aspect of its circular practice can be strangely beautiful. I hadn’t even heard the word. as well as explosive movements. So. who asked me in wide-eyed innocence if I had wanted to be a bagua teacher when I was his age. The traditional combative aspect is without sporting elements. It was designed to incapacitate or maim in an era in which ﬁrearms were still rare and ﬁghts usually involved more than one attacker. as the exercise physiologists are now telling us with new-found fervour. In addition. The solo aspect of walking the circle while holding various postures or shapes is designed to train the body in different ways—more on that in later chapters—as well as to be meditative.Introduction
I remember a conversation many years ago with one of my sons. no matter what its style—and there are many—emphasises balance and relaxation (sung). then twelve.

as I combined the worst attributes for personal safety—a big mouth and slow feet!) Unfortunately for my dreams of being another Bruce Lee. from a common sense perspective. The smaller student learns to evade attacks and counter-attacks almost simultaneously. There is really no substitute for this kind of apprenticeship. Kicks are normally aimed low. the combative essence of bagua is learning to change spontaneously to deal effectively with the tactics of an opponent. when I couldn’t ﬁnd a local teacher of that art in the mid-1970s. ideally on a one-to-one basis. When I ﬁnally started learning bagua and hsing-i in the early 1990s. It is true that training safely can sometimes make it difﬁcult to weed out the experts
. I quickly relearned the same lesson—nothing is as easy as it looks to an outsider if done properly. though not necessarily when doing postures within each change. while the larger person learns to immediately invade the attacker’s space by battering his way through the attacker’s arms. Those with no skill literally didn’t survive to pass on what they had practised. I picked Taijiquan by default. A teacher is not someone with a great uniform. and any of a host of traditional weaponry. or who can do a seemingly endless variety of forms.2
THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG
designed to be used against opponents who might be wearing some form of body armour and were heavily armed with staff. at the shins and knees. Similarly. which was good for the art. and who is willing to do so with you. that the best way to learn is to study with someone with the personal skill and the ability to transmit how he or she achieved that understanding. only looks effortless. the hard way. that taiji. In fact. or who can push you around by using tricks of leverage or through your own gullibility. when done well. many of the tactics that come down to us in the forms are designed to lock-up and throw the opponent rather than strike targets that might be protected from a punch or palm strike by leather or metal armour. it should be obvious. control and/or throw the opponent. The steps are rather tight. knife. The energy generated by the twisting of the torso combined with literally throwing your weight around in a controlled manner is expressed through the open hands to strike. the weight of the body stays on the back foot when walking in a circle.
FINDING A TEACHER
Like many North Americans. I ﬁrst came to the martial arts as a young man because I was not particularly athletic and wanted to learn how to defend myself (the latter seemed important. the knees staying in close proximity one to the other. Bagua seemed to ﬁt the bill but. I wanted mastery of something that was reputed to be effortless and more than a little esoteric. I soon realised that arts like karate and jujitsu involved a great deal of hard exercise and more than a few bruises. but more often in a group setting. to distract the opponent and leave his torso more vulnerable or to trap the lower body to make it more difﬁcult for the opponent to evade. It took me almost a decade to learn. This martial effectiveness was reﬁned by the many early practitioners who earned their living as bodyguards and merchant convoy escorts. spear. sword. In the end. if not for the unfortunates whose martial skills didn’t live up to their hopes and expectations. Most defensive and offensive movements are done with the open hand.

INTRODUCTION

3

from the poseurs. However, even without worrying about the many frauds trying to get your money or your loyalty, it is not easy to deﬁne competence when you are a beginner, as almost everyone is better than you in most ways. However, time and effort bring increased competence, and with a few years of experience (assuming that you are studying something valid to begin with) it should start to be easier to sort out the outright frauds from those who have some level of competence. How does one ﬁnd the real masters in the mob of wannabees and poseurs? It is sadly true that quite often those with the most grandiose claims and visible proﬁles are the ones with the least depth of knowledge. I doubt that the famous P. T. Barnum was thinking of bagua students when he wrote, “There is a sucker born every minute!”—but he would have been correct in many instances. However, the longer and the harder you train at a competent style, the more difﬁcult it can be to ﬁnd better role models, much less exceptional ones. Not many students are willing to travel to workshops given by other experts in other cities, or even just to buy their videos for comparison purposes. This is sometimes due to lack of time and ﬁnancial resources and sometimes to the kind of blind loyalty that drives students to think that it is disrespectful to their teacher to look elsewhere for inspiration. It bears repeating that it is essential for an intermediate level student to make the effort to compare what his or her instructor is doing with the skills and styles of that person’s peers in the the internal arts world. It is easy to be happy as a big ﬁsh in a small pond, and you have to make some effort to compare notes with your peers in the ocean if you are serious about your interest in becoming really competent! Let me offer some suggestions as to how to deﬁne the elusive quality of mastery in your chosen role model(s). These opinions certainly reﬂect my experience with Erle Montaigue, who has been my main bagua teacher, but are equally true of those few other gems that I have experienced over the years. A master is content to offer his or her own thing without being overly defensive about his or her interpretation of the art and without being too critical of those who do things differently. He or she can actually do what they say they can. This may seem simplistic, but there are many supposed experts who “can talk the talk, but cannot do the walk” unless they are demonstrating on their own students. A master has a strong foundation in traditional internal arts and continues to develop in a way that is a reﬂection of his or her foundation. He or she is someone with a normal life and interests (family, vocation, hobbies) whose bagua is an aspect of their life—not their whole existence. A master is someone whose forms and training methods can eventually teach you the same skills. In other words, their understanding is replicable and not just a unique expression of their skill, experience, and personal genius. On the other hand, you often meet teachers hooked up to a respectable lineage who are mediocre in their personal skills or their teaching abilities. Having had a famous master, now long-dead, will not automatically make you anything special. The problem lies in ﬁnding a balance between learning material that has some resemblance in detail and agrees in principle with what you see being demonstrated and taught by other good representatives of that art. Of course, this means that the observer has to have enough experience and skill

4

THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG

to tell the difference between a fraud, a mediocrity, or a genius. So, being a beginner is not easy in any sense of the word. Oh, and the height of mastery is that you don’t act like a master and expect others to treat you like one. Many instructors are willing to be worshipped by their students; others are slowly seduced into thinking of themselves as special because of the adulation they receive. Some instructors tread the fringes of exploitation by misrepresenting just how advanced their skills are—when they are really skilled only in a hard style and teach one bagua form as a sideline, or by forcing their senior students to teach beginner classes for free, or by having grading systems that call for frequent and expensive tests. Sadly, a few have no problem with ethics. They dispense with them altogether and take advantage of their students in a number of reprehensible ways. Here are some examples. A local instructor who taught women’s taiji and self-defence classes to beginners told them that they could learn to project Qi (internal energy) to disable a rapist from a distance. A local self-proclaimed grand master used to tell his students that he could not train with them because his Qi was so strong that he would rip out their muscles if he touched them. It was a little easier in the good old days to know if an instructor had skill, at least on some level. The other local martial arts instructors would visit and offer politely, or otherwise, to beat the ,, ,, out of him. It is difﬁcult to fake competence at the martial aspect of bagua when a stranger is doing his best to punch, humiliate, or throttle you. It is also sadly true that the majority of instructors, whether here or in China, rise to a certain level of competence, or incompetence, and then never change, no matter how many years they continue to practise and teach. It seems to be human nature to believe that you know it all and changing your approach is not easy, especially if you do have some skill and have had good instructors. In general, the fewer people involved, the less chance there is of serious errors being introduced. Think of it like this—would you rather own the master recording of a symphony done with professional equipment or the copy you made from the bootleg copy somebody else made with amateur recording equipment? Even with the highest skill and best intentions, some changes occur every time a form is learned by a teacher and subsequently passed on to his or her disciples for further transmission. To make it worse, modern bagua is burdened with endless bad copies of bad copies. A student learns from a reputable instructor for a few months or years and then, without his or her blessing, goes off to teach students who do the same after an equally inadequate apprenticeship. The original form becomes riddled with errors, or changes are made for all the wrong reasons. Similarly, many recent immigrants from the mainland are now teaching the wu-shu versions of bagua that they learned as a requirement for being a martial arts sports coach at one of the Chinese colleges. While such forms may be a decent introduction to the art, learning and practising one form hardly makes you an expert in a system! A good style should provide the material for a lifetime of research and practice. A mediocre or beginner’s form should be discarded when the time is right to do so. It is in your best interest to make a real effort to search for an original “document” that suits your physique and temperament. Leave the mutilated texts where they belong—on the shelf.

INTRODUCTION

5

My own main bagua instructor, Erle Montaigue is, in case you haven’t done much reading or exploration on the net, a controversial ﬁgure. Many deride his abilities and internal arts pedigree, although rarely to his face or if they have seen him perform in the ﬂesh. As far as I am concerned, he is the “real thing” in internal martial terms—a middle-aged expert who seems to get better and healthier every time I see him, and whose ﬁghting skills are harshly effective compared to what passes as martial competence in many versions of the modern internal arts. Erle has personally instructed and corrected me in my performance of all of the basic forms and methods of his bagua at annual workshops that I hosted for him in the early 1990s. He authorised me to teach those forms and methods in 1994, and I have been teaching that art at my Studio ever since. I have also done workshops with several other experts in this art and have studied a large variety of bagua instructional videos, books and magazine articles in an effort to understand the art better. As those of you who have been studying with me for some time will know, my understanding of what I practise and teach is constantly changing and evolving. This can be confusing and frustrating for everyone involved, but that is also an important aspect of the process of growth. While I tried to follow the example and teaching of my various teachers, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that—for good and bad—what I practise and teach has the stamp of my own personality and experience. However, I have done my best to stay true to the spirit and discipline of Baguazhang in terms of my own practice and teaching. It is important to remember that this was an accepted tradition in China—you brought the valid parts of your previous training to your bagua. For example, the Gao Style has been strongly affected by the competence of its early exponents in hsing-i. If you don’t have a competent instructor in your area, then give one of the basic tapes available through Erle, or other teachers, a try. It is possible to learn something at a basic level from a good tape, especially if you develop or have the motivation to eventually get some corrections from him or from another competent bagua instructor.

VIDEO/DVD INSTRUCTION
The saying “the self-taught individual has a fool for an instructor” is often sadly true. However, it is equally true that a beginner without access to a competent teacher can learn something from such instructional tools—if they are geared to beginners. Similarly, studying any good instructor’s videos is a legitimate, if challenging, way to improve your understanding of what you learned from him or her while in class. However, if you have experience in another martial art or modern taiji style, it can be easy to convince yourself that you immediately understand most or all of the bagua basics being taught either in class or on a video. Such arrogance is usually self-defeating. Look at it this way—even though both activities involve knowing how to skate, is a hockey player also automatically qualiﬁed to be a ﬁgure skater, and vice versa? Proper study goes hand in hand with frequent review, especially of the material you think you already know. I have found errors, small and large, in my efforts almost every time I

6
THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG
have reviewed material I thought I had understood. The former are really only of use for comparison purposes. If you are bewildered by the variety of videos available by mail. You copied the physical movements of the teacher to the best of your ability. and that was that until you were accepted into the inner circle of senior students. not all tapes are created equal. It is not making mistakes that is problematic—we all make errors with new material—the real error lies in failing to correct the mistakes you know about. It is much harder to fool yourself about your progress if.
. As in all things. is hardly more detailed than a demonstration tape. by Western standards. hard to follow. When considering the purchase of a particular video. A lengthy. don’t automatically reject the tape produced by an unknown martial artist and assume that the one by the famous expert will be necessarily better—this is not always true. for example. It is important to remember that traditional teaching was often done largely in silence and by example. try to rent copies of the ones that might interest you before buying. Similarly. and this is not always appropriate. Unfortunately. It is also sadly true that some instructors will purposefully include errors to the video instruction as a way of ensuring that those who study only the videos will be identiﬁable to those in the know if they ever meet them. or Taiwan may be labelled as instructional when it. Such opinions are not always impartial. However. much less master any of the forms and methods shown. We tend to judge a product by its cost. Once you have some real knowledge. It is important to remember that even a talented instructor can produce a video that is poorly lit. and needlessly repetitious. This allows you to compare notes on the different ways of interpreting what you are learning. hour-long product delivers insights and tactics worthy of a lifetime of study. and it is not always possible to identify a bad video until you have wasted both your time and money. A reputable producer or distributor will indicate which it is in the advertisement. Martial arts supplies stores as well as some New Age bookstores often rent instructional tapes. You should also realise that a tape/DVD produced in China. it is equally true that the majority of those buying videos or DVDs will watch them once or twice and then relegate them to a shelf without ever trying to practise. You can also read the reviews that sometimes appear in the martial arts magazines. highpriced tape may give you little of value while a more modestly priced. pay attention to whether it is a demonstration or instructional tape. from arrogance or plain laziness. but they are a starting point for comparison shopping. many of the instructors making videos are doing so speciﬁcally to augment their incomes and are less concerned about an accurate transmission of what they teach than they would be with their own students. You can learn a great deal if you study videos in a disciplined manner and then have the opportunity to get corrections or advice from someone who actually can do the forms and methods with some competence. or if you have learned the material in person and need a record for home study. Hong Kong. it is very useful to watch and study as many videos by as many different instructors as possible. I tactfully remind you that “your thumb doesn’t go there” when you are demonstrating the Toad in the Hole Posture you just taught yourself from one of Erle’s videos.

but you can refer to it much more easily than to a video if you forget something from a recent lesson. PERIODICALS & THE INTERNET
To put it simply. Similarly. If you are a relative beginner. you can also go off the track so much that you will undo all the real progress you have made since starting to learn from me. However. the written word is indispensable for studying the philosophy.INTRODUCTION
7
It becomes essential to review the tapes you have used at regular intervals even when you have a working competence in the material covered. as opposed to just seeing. I know that many people today don’t think of duplicating cassettes or burning CDs/DVDs as being theft. Unfortunately. If you have a lot of aptitude. even the most heavily illustrated book is relatively useless for learning the basic forms and training methods. history. it is also true that illustrated books and articles are useful if used as a supplement to personal instruction. do not borrow one of Erle’s or another instructor’s videos and copy them instead of buying a copy from the source. Infringing on copyright is illegal and cheapens the value of your efforts to learn. For example. you will probably go through a stage in which you don’t think you are learning as quickly as you are capable of doing. as adults. and theory of the art. but—rationalise it all you want—doing so remains theft of intellectual or artistic property. you will ﬁnd that you suddenly see aspects of the material you had never suspected existed when you ﬁrst started. and I make no apologies. or while you are in the middle of practising. as you learn to pay attention. You will also ﬁnd that there are a few overt and many subtle differences in the way I teach the forms and methods compared to what is on the videos. what is being demonstrated is even harder (for many years) than trying to copy it physically. This is for a variety of reasons. I don’t want to be too discouraging. I also continue to be amazed by the numbers of experienced students and instructors that I meet who have no real understanding of the history and theory of bagua and
. it should also go without saying that it is easier to understand the principles of bagua in your head than in your body or spirit. The essence of bagua resides in movement and not in static postures. you can actually shave some time from your learning curve. please. though. It is not too much of a cynical statement to say that there are more armchair experts in the internal arts than in any other martial systems. These subtleties are impossible to capture through still photography. Perceiving. Of course.
LEARNING FROM BOOKS. Just keep in mind that you are stuck with my opinions and guidance. Having said this. One last thing. and I expect you to do as you are told when it comes to the forms and methods that I teach. and what Erle is doing on them. As you develop more skill and over time. you are free to buy advanced videos and try to incorporate the physical differences between what I teach you. we have such a cerebral culture that many people confuse understanding something intellectually with understanding it on a gut level as a result of having lived through it. as for the intermediate level student—but not beginner—studying instructional videos can be an excellent learning experience. Finally. You cannot learn a set of movements from a book.

so have many other legitimate experts. and the rest through www. Smith. 1967
I would add that there are good translations available in English of the original Chinese texts on the Circular and the Linear Forms that Erle teaches. “I don’t know anything about this vehicle.com/. He should take comfort in the knowl-
. It is available at very reasonable cost and includes all issues published in the seven years it existed in the 1990s. Yang Jwing Ming & Wu Wen Ching Yang’s Martial Arts Association. who can be reached at http://www. 1999 Emei Baguazhang: Theory and Applications by Liang Shou Yu. Edited by Dan Miller. all you have to do is type “pa-kua chang” or “baguazhang” in any search engine to get more information than you can handle in an afternoon—or several! It is also true that while there is a huge amount of interesting information on bagua and the internal martial arts available on the Internet. How can you claim to be a serious student or instructor in any discipline when you have no interest in the background of what you teach? Would you buy a car from a salesman who said. bagua sites are often self-serving means of advertising classes.uk/.thewushucentre. 1994 Ba Gua: Hidden Knowledge in the Taoist Internal Martial Art by John Bracy & Liu Xing Han. I would also heartily recommend buying the CD compilation of the defunct publication The Pa-Kua Journal. Kodansha International Ltd. And they also come and go. so I won’t recommend any except Erle’s website http://www. videos.com/ in the United States. doesn’t it?” I recommend the following books.. Paladin Press.8
THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG
know nothing about the state of the art or the current masters presently teaching in North America or the Orient. workshops.plumﬂower. visiting the related chatlines and bulletin boards can be very depressing. These texts are useful for comparison purposes as they contain the line drawings that illustrated the original Chinese texts.taijiworld. and one such translator and distributor is Andrea Falk in Canada. in these electronic forums. but then again. heated arguments about minor details of practice or who is legitimate and who is not. It can be ordered through Plum Flower Press http://www. this was an excellent source for any bagua practitioner to research the historical and theoretical side of the art. The ﬁrst is available over the Internet through Paladin Press.amazon. North Atlantic books. but it sure looks nice. However. 1999 Pa-kua: Chinese boxing for Fitness & Self-Defense by Robert W. Erle has had more than his fair share of abuse.com if your local bookstore doesn’t carry them or doesn’t do special orders:
Baguazhang: Fighting Secrets of the Eight Trigram Palm by Erle Montaigue.co. or books. Many of the conversations seem less like those between informed adults and more like those you overhear between teenage boys whose hormones are in overdrive. For example. On the Internet.

as well as Yang Jwing Ming and. and those you argue with or deride are far enough away (or mature enough) so that you don’t have to worry about retribution—the intellectual equivalent of the schoolyard bully who threatens you while surrounded by his buddies. practise regularly to the best of your abilities and invest a minimum of ﬁve years with me or another competent instructor. you should develop a real understanding of its principles and core methods as a self-healing and combative system. thanks for having studied with me—a good instructor needs good students to continue to develop as a practitioner and teacher. Internet forums are anonymous (if you choose to hide). your progress is limited only by your diligence. but it is also easy to have a board ruined for serious discussion or exchange because the more experienced practitioners stop posting out of disgust. and I will not try to repeat what he has written on the forms and methods he teaches.INTRODUCTION
9
edge that experts like Sam Masich. this is not a how-to-manual. After all. A certain amount of arguing or teasing is fun at times. the idlers. Erle has produced many articles and books on the subject of bagua. if you don’t have experience in Erle’s or anyone’s bagua. Finally. I would suspect that these forums act like the village well did in the Middle Ages in that the inﬁrm. well known and obscure alike. if one of my current or former bagua students is reading this. Liang Shou Yu. If you focus on bagua.
.
A FINAL CAVEAT
By the way. It is also true that there are almost as few good students of any internal discipline as there are good teachers. it is also not a reference resource that you can easily ignore for researching the history and current affairs of the bagua and internal arts world. Consequently. After that. you may ﬁnd it somewhat frustrating and the descriptions vague or hard to understand. and gossipers are attracted to gather around to trade stories and to make fun of those who are actually out working to support the village or are away ﬁghting to defend it. As I said earlier. Park Bo Nam. many others. have been criticised or insulted through the anonymous safety of the Internet. I would assume. Much of what follows in the various chapters will be discussions of subjects and training methods I teach in my personal classes. Having said all this. I am afraid I cannot do much about that. Any good text on bagua is designed to stimulate thought and provide historical and theoretical background—not teach movement. dedication and your willingness to seek out better instructors.

physiques. what they had learned from Tung. Born an impoverished and illiterate farmer. and this will be reﬂected in the pages of this little manual. Indeed. Today there are many different styles of baguazhang. Particularly. in the grand tradition of the Chinese martial arts. historical bagua begins in the mid-1800s with a man named Tung Hai Ch’uan. What a modern person would call falsifying lineage was a common and accepted practice in China in the old days—as venerable was always better. Tung likely synthesised his art from a variety of ﬁghting and meditation methods that he had learned over the years. and innovative martial approaches were always suspect. are often related directly to the text and various commentaries on this ancient book. Although methods of walking meditation in circular patterns have been used for religious and meditative practice by various Taoist sects for centuries. Tung’s greatness as a founder and instructor lies partly in his ability to adapt the principles and methods of his art to suit the temperament. but not exclusively in the Chinese internal arts. The style I practise and teach came from
. in their turn. As with the other internal martial arts.Chapter One
Learning how to Learn Baguazhang
The name of this art (also spelled Pa-kua Chang in older English language books) translates as “Eight Trigrams Palm” in reference to the famous eight patterns of broken and solid lines used in the Chinese philosophical and divination text I-Ching. notably in the monasteries of the Er-mei and Wu-tang mountains. I prefer to focus on the more mundane aspects of training in my classes. In any case. there are an often contradictory variety of stories about its history. Although he taught relatively few. and existing skills of his various students who were all experienced martial artists when they came to him for instruction. many of those went on to teach and modify. and even its martial tactics. he went on to learn a variety of traditional ﬁghting systems and eventually began teaching his distinctive approach while crediting others with its creation. While the principles of bagua. and almost all of those available in North America trace their lineage back to him. there is a long list of anonymous Taoist monks or mythical ﬁgures who are supposed to have transmitted the secrets of the various arts in dreams or through texts which mysteriously appeared on cave ﬂoors or in other unlikely places.

I am not suggesting that you need to become more Chinese than a native to be able to practise and beneﬁt from your training. bagua solo training will transform you and your health. often in ways that surprise you. in part.” but it is also very true that the older student is already at a disadvantage compared to a younger beginner in bagua if he or she is grossly out of physical condition or very set in his or her ways. Until you can observe the subtle movements and the ﬁne details of your role model’s posture and body mechanics. Before you can copy your instructor. you won’t know it is possible to move in such a manner. At an intermediate level the student learns to reﬁne his or her interpretation of the copied movements until they are automatic enough so that there is some mental energy available to work on the more subtle aspects (i.e. It has been heavily inﬂuenced by the hsing-i training of Chang and Chiang and the varied expertise and experiences of those who have followed. keeping the mind on the lower tan-tien. it is equally true that the average beginner will probably not be able to do more than crudely copy an instructor’s movements whether those are of high or no quality. Learning this art is also. which is in itself the ﬁrst step towards developing any real skill. when to in-
. and everyone has to start somewhere. over the long term. are almost as rare as good students. This is especially true for those adults who have settled into a comfortable lifestyle and lost interest in acquiring new habits. However. The majority of beginners may look but cannot see what is being transmitted in any detail. For a beginner it is always preferable to have the best possible instruction. Done properly and moderately. There is a saying that “education is wasted on the young.” This tendency among those looking for life’s answers in cultures other than their own is often exploited by instructors who have confused wearing Chinese clothing and spouting pseudo-nonsense in a learned manner with developing real internal style skills. There is an unfortunate tendency in Western beginners to want or expect exotic and mystical aspects to bagua training. whether in China or North America. a process of relearning the learning process itself. you have to really see what he or she is doing. I was discussing this with a colleague.LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
11
Tung Hai Ch’uan to Chang Chao Tung to Chiang Jung Chiao to Ho Ho Choy to Chu King Hung to Erle Montaigue and to me. I am not sure that Tung would recognise the details of what we do if he were to come back from the grave. good instructors. However. subtle or otherwise.
THE LEARNING PROCESS
Learning any aspect of bagua is not simply a process of memorising physical moves and remembering their sequence. His comment was very apt: “Too many of us spent too much time watching the kung-fu television series when growing up. or of doing a variety of martial training methods with a partner or with your instructor—although those are certainly essential aspects of the training at any level of competence. Unfortunately. as it is easier to create good habits than to correct bad ones once they become ingrained.. but he would surely notice the spirit and the principles of what he taught.

). loyalty is a two-way street. When you are learning skills you might have to use to defend yourself or your loved ones from real aggression. learn everything you can from that individual before trying to ﬁnd the next teacher. Rather. Whether for martial or health purposes. some teachers become egoists. Such may have been appropriate in another time. no matter what. you owe your instructor loyalty. Good students are essential to an instructor. and you deserved to displace the old dynasty.
. Some are ﬂawed. stick with him or her until you have decided that bagua is not for you. ensuring that he or she continues to evolve as a teacher. a process which needs a few months of class time at the very least. I have seen and experienced many different ways to interpret baguazhang. at least for the ﬁrst few years. martial loyalty should imply an honest and mutual exchange and the willingness on your part to trust the instructor’s motives and skills without losing sight of the fact that he or she is human. you should always wait a little longer—you may discover that your own arrogance had made the forms and methods seem easier than they really were. etc. in the end. shower him or her with presents. one of Canada’s ﬁnest modern internal arts instructors. Both the instructor and the student must contribute to the relationship if it is to survive and help both to evolve as people and martial artists. “You can correct almost anything. and hang around their front door day and night until accepted as a student. I must add. They challenge him or her constructively. Assuming that you stay for several years. another culture. and have no experience at rough and tumble. should not be a feudal willingness to suspend your ethics or misbeliefs and do what you are told. as a martial artist. content to surround themselves with students whose only talents lie in ﬂattery or hero worship. In fact. It is easy to give up if you feel that you have no aptitude for what you are studying. but. had a safety valve—if you successfully revolted against the Emperor. though extremely strict and hierarchical.12
CHAPTER ONE
hale and exhale. It is easy for the many bogus instructors to fool their students if the latter have never been hit. This. You can rationalise betrayal as with any form of human behaviour. though. especially if you ﬁnd it more difﬁcult than you had imagined. It is very true that. Sam’s comment was. except lack of practice!” For those who go the distance. you must learn to be patient with your own progress without becoming too complacent about it. Once you meet a qualiﬁed and compatible instructor. it was obvious that Heaven was on your side. In this regard. the Chinese were on the right track with the Confucian concept of loyalty which. the student who wishes to learn deeply needs the instructor more than the latter needs students. By the way. Sadly. particularly for beginners. it is essential to have competent instruction from the start. that this is not true for those who wish to learn the self-defence aspects of this discipline. However. It is not so appropriate today. and as a person. Perhaps. I am not saying that the average student of today should grovel before a prospective instructor. Few are completely without value. however. it is also important to remember there are different ways to write a sentence that still provide the same information. give someone at a week-long training camp of his that I attended in 1990. I have always valued advice I overheard Sam Masich. particularly if you have never had any decent martial training in the past. in a ﬁght.

The mental visualisation of using the palm is as important as the physical movements that accompany it. Learning to be Balanced Balance has many interpretations. However. each form. The spine must learn to lengthen and compress subtly to aid in powering the movements. but for the ﬁrst months?… As well as understanding how important it is to avoid being double-weighted. It is being able to stand as still as a post for several minutes even when supporting yourself on one leg. Balance is also about redeﬁning how you interpret relaxation. the spine and hips become as important in striking as the shoulder. always having more weight on one leg than the other is hard work for the muscles and ligaments of the legs and hips. it seems relatively simple to avoid having an equal distribution of weight on both legs. align. and ﬁst. always having your body weight supported by one. strength and mobility and. but the following three are certainly right up there in their relevance to your training. elbow. Progress in the technical performance of form is still important. as our hips tend to lose some of their natural range of motion even when we are relatively ﬁt. balance improves. To put it simply. being balanced is not simply a question of how well you can move through a variety of complicated physical manoeuvres.LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
13
KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR A STUDENT
Wanting to learn any or all aspects of bagua requires hard work and particular physical. and pays less and less conscious attention to its specific details. However. as well as the Conceptor Vessel that goes down the centreline of the front of the torso to the lower tan-tien. In the long run. It is difﬁcult to reduce any aspect of this discipline to a few crucial items. mental and emotional attributes. for the state of the art. For the beginner. but has become much less so than in the beginning. consequently. rather than both legs is the beginning of balance in physical terms.
. as well as willingness to work at both aspects of bagua—self-healing and self-defence—so that neither predominates in your training and daily life. Unfortunately. not straight and stiff. balance is eventually achieved by relearning how to be upright and connected. the frequent toe-in and toe-out movements that are characteristic of bagua are also difﬁcult to adjust to. New Age versions of bagua to the contrary. This allows for a greater ease of Qi movement along the Governing Vessel that goes up the spine in the back. the intermediate level practitioner must also usually relearn how to stand and move. your objective is not to eliminate muscle usage. For example. the practitioner seems to move effortlessly through each posture. but to loosen. it is the ability to move slowly and smoothly or quickly with a broken rhythm without being double-weighted. It is not easy to learn to safely use the Triangle Stance that is so common in our discipline. Eventually. Similarly. and connect it into a whole body usage. At ﬁrst. balance is most often interpreted as being purely physical and technical.

If you go too far in the other direction. the best instructors I have had all shared one trait. This may be ﬁne if you are single. In contrast to the technical perfectionists are the New Age bagua players who are content to go through the motions. and body mechanics necessary to do so. as few of us are reclusive monks living in
. and move with the ease of an animal. Being balanced also implies that you will shufﬂe your educational. such practitioners usually are not particularly concerned over how they look to observers. the beginner or pseudo-master is so concerned with his or her technical prowess that this preoccupation becomes a source of imbalance and tension that can diminish the quality of his or her practice. It is a sad reﬂection of human nature that most students seem to ﬁnd a grimly obsessive attitude and facial expression necessary to feel as if they are learning something of value. The essence of the art is to unify and co-ordinate the spirit. This is not to say that the ability to balance yourself on one leg or the technical beauty of your movements are unimportant. For example. Their movements seem as natural as taking a walk or going up a ﬂight of stairs are for most of us. and that is a rich. after the novelty wears off. or your husband may not understand your sudden desire to attend classes three times a week and worry that it will interfere with his routine. if often eccentric. In addition. It is not enough to imagine that you can stand effortlessly on one leg. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. and not let one predominate. family responsibilities to accommodate your training needs. education or career nor being lackadaisical. and your leisure time is usually curtailed to some degree when you are serious about your training. your bagua training becomes play of the highest order. You may plan to go to the evening class after supper on a regular basis. training sporadically as the mood strikes you. This is partly due to emotional maturity and also because they are able to recover so smoothly from a loss of balance that the mistake is difﬁcult for the average observer to see.14
CHAPTER ONE
Few become master practitioners. your girlfriend may not understand why her dinner party seems less important than your scheduled workshop. sacriﬁcing family and friends. However. while doing their forms with no technical precision or ability. that the location of the classes is so far from home or work that commuting is exhausting. However. Studying bagua can mean doing what you think is right for you even if others don’t immediately understand or support you. there is always a price to pay for everything in life. mind. looseness. Nor is it always possible to devote as much time as you would wish to your training—whether it is in class or on your own. sense of humour. Your body has to have acquired the strength. but it will cause problems if you are not. but ﬁnd. you may develop an obsession with internal development that leads to other problems. In general. Are you balanced in how seriously you take your training—neither training obsessively day and night. and body. Balance requires that you persevere. Few adults can train with the energy of adolescence. but such minor losses of balance are smoothed over and have no bearing on their innate ability. work. Sometimes they make mistakes or stumble. By contrast. With the right attitude. as much because you enjoy the classes and solo practice. as if in a trance. as because you are determined to improve yourself.

Erle Montaigue has often said that “you should train to live. improves circulation and avoids or minimises the pain and fatigue caused by muscle tension. not live to train. Learning to be Adaptable “The more things change. no matter what your age. but that the practice is initially anything but relaxing! The muscle tone and efﬁcient body mechanics required in bagua are relaxing in the sense that real relaxation is related to creating postural integrity which encourages deep abdominal breathing. Learning to Relax Some of the people who enquire about classes at my Studio want to know if bagua is as relaxing as taijiquan is. rhythmic exercise. It accomplishes this primarily by dispersing accumulations of lactic acid. However. It doesn’t if that is all you have ever practised! To reap the maximum beneﬁt from your daily practice it is essential to traine in all aspects of the art—not just the ones you ﬁnd easy or enjoy the most. the more they remain the same. regularity and moderation in your personal practice outside of class time are particularly essential in the ﬁrst few years. For example. good instruction.LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
15
a mountain cave. particularly for older students. Even with adequate and sincere instruction a novice is more likely to leave class tense and frustrated if he or she is unhealthy or unused to regular physical activity. It is easy to convince yourself that walking the circle while holding the Eight Mother Palms or doing the circular form everyday will somehow bring effortless power and great self-healing beneﬁts. by the alternate contraction and relaxation of muscles. incorrectly. They seem to ﬁnd it problematic when I tell them that bagua is about stretching and lengthening. it is much harder to ignore the imperatives of changing your tactics when working with a partner. In Western medical terms. we also have to remember the need for compromise. While it is all too easy to move mechanically through the movements of form when doing solo practice. And. if you don’t modify a tactic that normally works on
. a by-product of chemical energy production in the muscles. with time. this can help us to understand that change is not necessarily our enemy—just another aspect of both our bagua practice and daily life. Patience. it is more likely that the ﬁrst few months of classes will serve only to elevate the stress levels of the average beginner as he or she discovers that learning qigong or the fundamentals of form is not as effortless as it looks. yet accurate saying that certainly describes the human reluctance to change even when we know it is in our best interest. that this can eventually undo chronic tension. reputed to be. this encourages the Qi to ﬂow in an unimpeded manner throughout the body. and loosens and stretches the body’s connective and muscular tissue.” This is true. that doing the form provides a weight-bearing exercise that can slow or prevent osteoporosis. It is also true. Being balanced also implies that you will practise both solo and two-person exercises. perseverance. In traditional terms. especially for maintaining healthy relationships.” a trite.

” Trying to prepare for the future is. • Don’t be too humble. This seemed a blessing. There may be weeks that you cannot train because of professional or work commitments. in some ways. Consider the old Chinese parable of the peasant whose only son wanted a young spirited horse to ride. over the years. The following strategies may help you make the most of your training and avoid injury: • Decide what you want from your training. Similarly. most of us will only achieve a deeper understanding of ourselves and bagua. no matter what their age. to quote the late musician and cultural icon John Lennon: “Life is what happens while you are making plans.) • Expect setbacks. even on those days that you don’t train. Mastering a difﬁcult technique or having a sudden insight into some aspect of your training should be acknowledged with pride. The son was the only one allowed to remain at home while the other young men were marched away. Setting Realistic Goals A minority of gifted students. and vice versa. and even without trying to make it happen. Long-term moderate effort is the ultimate key to being able to train for the rest of your life. becoming relaxed. • Keep a daily training diary. centred. and vice versa.
. most never to be seen again! Learning to deal with change is a complex process.16
CHAPTER ONE
someone at your own level of competence when practising with the instructor or a senior student. Break these down into smaller ones and assign them deadlines. who was left with a permanently lame leg. (Studying the reasons why you didn’t practise on a given day may help you determine patterns and counterproductive habits. and spontaneous on a physical level is bound to have similar ramiﬁcations for your emotional state. until the spirited new animal promptly threw its inexperienced young rider. • Don’t be too proud. on a personal level. There may be minor or serious injuries that require a period of rest and rehabilitation. which seemed a disaster for the family until she came back with a stallion that had followed it home. and put them in writing. Keep your skills and accomplishments in perspective and identify those areas in your training which still need work and can be realistically improved. not just the placid old mare that his family used to pull their plough. you quickly learn that the ability to adapt spontaneously to changing circumstances is as difﬁcult as it is essential. set progressive and realistic goals. as futile as trying to master techniques that cover every possible martial situation. What seems beneﬁcial at ﬁrst can prove to have been a curse. This was seen as a curse until the government ofﬁcials conscripted all the able-bodied young men and sent them off to war. The mare ran away one night. will have one intuitive breakthrough after another in their training. one element at a time. However.

LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
Duration & Frequency of Training
17
The length of each of your training sessions and their frequency in your schedule are dependent on a number of variables: your own level of interest. and so on. high-intensity activity. the older obsessive student may train too hard initially and burn himself out on a physical or emotional level. Few fall in this happy category! Age-Related Issues I have not had any success teaching children. However. like fast or fast/slow forms that require short bursts of energy are best done late in the day. Few adults with families or occupations can match such training regimes. For slower or steadier exercise. perform more skilfully and get more out of your workout. In this way. People are more inclined to skip scheduled exercise in the mid to late afternoon because of fatigue or busy schedules. physical ability. especially those with hard style martial experience. much less their students. It is very difﬁcult for average students to learn the interactive side unless they come to a group or private class two to three times per week for several years. Conversely. the obsessive younger student may quickly develop martial skills but destroy his emotional and spiritual sense of balance. time constraints. The martial skills cannot be gained from training on an irregular basis unless you are already a very experienced martial artist or have a great deal of aptitude. Even young adults. I ﬁnd it difﬁcult to be patient with the modern practitioners who obviously believe that doing a modern wu-shu variation of the Circular Form once a day somehow makes them superior in every way to someone who trains regularly and intensively in one of the external martial arts. it is hard to believe that anyone today is capable of such intensity. It is certainly true that few modern teachers. practise with the intensity that the old masters are reputed to have brought to their training. may have to give up much of what they have already learned to make real progress and are often reluctant to do so. or teenagers for that matter. When reading about the master who would routinely practise walking the circle and forms under a large table so that he was forced to use and maintain very low stances. you will reap the same beneﬁts whether you practise early or late in the day. especially if your interest goes beyond doing this discipline as more than a set of physical movements. many come to bagua expecting that it is effortless right from the start because you are just walking in a circle. Modern research has shown that the traditionalists were on the right track about the morning and evening being the best times to practise. Several times over the years of teaching I have shocked would-be students who had done indifferent bagua elsewhere by
. As to young and middle-aged adults. You will feel stronger. The self-healing and defence skills of baguazhang are gained gradually through moderate and balanced training. the lackadaisical student trains only when the mood takes him or her and then overinﬂates the value of such training. An internal martial art is difﬁcult to cultivate through either obsessive or lackadaisical training. But it remains true that regular practice is essential to making progress.

No matter what your relative age. it is also important to practise on a continuous basis. these circumstances avoid issues that often come up in Western classes. or practise a different form as he or she gets older. especially if you are over 35 and unused to physical activity. While gender restricted classes are sexist in modern Western terms. Heart and circulatory conditions are often without symptoms until the moment you have a heart attack or stroke during a warm-up. but rarely the combative aspects of the art and rarely in a mixed class. Gender-Related Issues In the good old days in China. The average older internal practitioner may have to modify the intensity of each session. and it can be a shock to realise that you are not as young as you once were.g. The older beginner must come to terms with his or her strengths and limitations and consider what personal and lifestyle changes will be necessary to train safely. but it looks so easy!” Athletically. he or she will have to be prepared to train more carefully and moderately than the younger students in the class. not young adults. and most of the best instructors I have met in a variety of martial arts are middle-aged. Such continuity is. men tend to peak in their late teens and early twenties. Aside from using proper body mechanics in your training. with proper stretching and progressive training any ability can be gained to a surprising extent even by the not-so-young beginner. those looking for new romantic or
. If you are practising intensively. in the long run. Of course. Human nature being what it is. you may have to go on a diet and improve your ﬁtness levels before beginning the martial classes and pace yourself once you have begun to train. cause those joints to self-destruct when you hit 50. and it will be more difﬁcult to safely resume your practice. brothers or husbands if they were lucky enough to have one who was also an instructor. only possible if you practise a style that uses sound body mechanics.18
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encouraging them to walk properly. Older martial artists should not ignore the realities of an aging body and try to exceed their capabilities or rush their progress. there wasn’t a problem caused by mixed gender classes—as there weren’t any. for example. or substitute a slower pace for a fast. you may ﬁnd it very difﬁcult to restrain yourself when everyone else around you is moving at high speed. I recommend taking one day off every week from your training. Maturity and experience are assets that cannot be replaced. Allowing your knees to rotate out of alignment may go unnoticed when you are a ﬁt 25-year-old but. especially if you are practising vigorous forms. as well as engaging in other demanding physical activities. in government-run martial arts colleges on the Mainland. but there is no legitimate age-related reason to stop completely. Similarly. it is difﬁcult to begin bagua if you have an acute or chronic medical condition affecting your back or knees. women experts teach form and qigong to women. e. Stop all activity and training for a few months when you are past 50. In more recent years. The conclusion was usually: “That’s a lot harder to do than what I’m used to. You should consult with a physician before beginning to train in the interactive aspects.. of course. However. Women learned only from their fathers.

Practitioners must also be prepared to acknowledge that they may well enjoy the intimate contact. sexual dominance issues aside. women are usually going to be at risk from a larger man as. Human beings are sensual and tactile by nature. As in most aspects of trying to adapt traditional methods to modern needs. It is also just as liable to lead to something a little more intimately mundane. In regards to the latter. to outline to his or her students what is and is not appropriate when practising in a mixed environment.” This can be understood in a variety of ways depending on your experience with the internal arts. both sexes must be prepared for the intimacy of many of the twoperson training methods and accidental contact with certain tender parts of each other’s anatomy. enjoy it very much indeed. However. the late Ch’eng Man Ch’ing is reported to have often exhorted his students to make progress by “investing in loss. it is an option for a female student to get into the habit of wearing one of the sparring bras that have plastic cups. and enjoying the feel of another person’s body as you practise is part of the pleasure of training—like dancing with a good partner. arousal (as in the emotional and physical intimacy that can develop when training with a partner of the opposite sex) does increase the production of sexual hormones which can be reﬁned through your training into martial or self-healing Qi. Certainly. from both a liability and ethical point of view. women should practise with men to develop skills that might work against men. In addition. Investing In Loss The famous taijiquan instructor. or ensuring that women work only with women and men only with men. conversely. In the end. While it is not the only solution. the easiest
. Instructors must be willing to be ﬂexible. However. At least for some class time. It is certainly in the best interests of each instructor. you mustn’t carry it too far the other way either. I ﬁnd that very few women want to wear them in the same way that most male students ignore the common sense of wearing an athletic support and protective cup because they are not comfortable to train in. and those men who feel that they can fondle female students under the pretence of having accidentally made contact during the various two-person exercises. it is not easy to avoid diluting the martial content of bagua as the easiest way of avoiding controversy. It doesn’t mean that you are debauched to feel this way.LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
19
sexual partners more than quality instruction. this may mean limiting the techniques practised in a group setting where supervision is spotty due to numbers. To make this whole issue more complicated. Although to be frank. in terms of developing self-defence skills. I don’t think that gender restricted classes are a valid solution. aggressors are often compensating for cowardice by looking for smaller victims. it is difﬁcult to supervise a large group class as to what is too much or is a sexual contact. One person may be completely unaware of contact that might make another extremely uncomfortable. some people are not comfortable with being touched by members of the same sex or. however. as this may eliminate some problems but create new ones. For example.

Then it learns to run. In this case. investing in loss is hard enough in solo work. Then it learns to stand unaided. it is almost impossible to rationalise your weaknesses—you either learn from them. the next reaction is often “My partner used too much force!” and the last bit of ego defense is likely to be “Well. Then it learns to prop itself up on its forearms.
. beginners tend to buy the advanced tapes and teach themselves the form shown at that level. the ﬁrst step is to recognise that there are things you need to work on in yourself that are hindering your progress. The result is normally counterproductive for those practitioners’ learning—especially if they don’t have the constructive criticism of a live instructor on a regular basis. Then it learns to stand holding onto the parent’s hands. yeah! Take this!” All are counterproductive. then to look for someone else to blame. The temptation is ﬁrst to refuse to acknowledge that you have made a mistake. but the majority progress by learning in stages. Then it learns to sit up. the hardest lesson of all. Then it learns to crawl on all fours. Seems like common sense. but it is amazing how many students have trouble identifying their problem areas. I wasn’t ready!” To correct such tendencies. or pushing you vigorously into a wall. and I could stand to get back to basics. For anyone who has tried to understand any aspect of bagua this is. Sometimes they cannot see the problems. a new student (no matter how much unrelated martial arts experience he or she may have) needs to focus on precision and the basics of bagua posture and body movement. In the beginning. “Right. Then the parents learn to hide all the breakables and dangerous objects. come up with an excuse for why you failed. Then it learns to walk. quite often they refuse to! Now.” I know from bitter experience that every time I have convinced myself that I was ﬁnally an expert. Instead. Skipping Stages How do you know if you are skipping stages that might later prove to have had essential lessons to be digested? After all. ﬁnally. it is easy (when you imagine that you have relevant experience) to think. I have discovered the hard way that something was still missing.20
CHAPTER ONE
way is to learn from your mistakes.… A few genius babies can skip a few steps to physical independence. particularly when it applies to the various two-person drills where it is important to learn to evade as much as block your partner’s attacks. perhaps. punching you. Let me put it simply: a baby learns to turn over on its own. For example. I didn’t move my feet!” When you ﬁnally admit that you did lose your balance. enough of this intermediate stuff—as a genius I can leap from the ﬁrst step to the highest. This is one of the few areas in which I would offer a gentle criticism of Erle’s approach to making such a wide variety of video material available. Too much of it is aimed at the intermediate and advanced level practitioners. not enough at the beginner. and. refuse to return to that kind of training environment. or lose your temper and escalate the training to the level of “Oh. From a teacher’s perspective it can be amusing to watch two students practising together if both of them tend to be defensive by nature. your partner knocks you off balance and your ﬁrst reply is “No. but it gets harder still when someone is repeatedly beating their way through your defences.

and this can be very hard on the ego if you have gotten used to thinking of yourself as an experienced practitioner. Human nature is such that the average student usually resists and resents this need to start over. There is a world of difference between baguazhang and taijiquan. and with even greater maturity comes the realisation that a mountain is just a mountain. or Wing-Chun. in the vast majority of cases. anyway)—having a beginner who is experienced martially or has no such experience. to maximise that learning experience. It is difﬁcult to say which is better (in my experience. Cross-Training for the Relative Beginner I have met several karate and shaolin instructors who practise and teach bagua as a proﬁtable sideline. In many ways. those students who have done yoga or meditation training of one kind or another or any of the New Age body/mind disciplines may spend too much time trying to compare what they are learning to what they already know (or think they know). you will need to start from scratch. Too many martial artists are content to take endless workshops just to get a photo with. Having said that. workshops are largely a waste of time in terms of an individual being able to beneﬁt much unless he or she already has considerable skill and experience and takes an equally talented partner to train with during the workshop. Those with hard style experience can be either the best or the worst of students. can skip that middle stage. and this is equally true of those who come to class with a clean slate. there is great truth to that old Buddhist and martial arts adage that “In the beginning a mountain is just a mountain. or idiot. and it is never an easy task on any level.
. you will eventually reach a point when you must choose the path that best suits you. With study you realise how complex that seemingly inert structure is. it is unlikely that you will have the time or aptitude to do bagua the way it should be done as a martial art. And. If you continue to enjoy and practise the other arts as you learned them. or a few memories of. Most beneﬁt from experiencing it although many of those who bother also get stuck at that level. their internal arts are anything but! Similarly. It is equally true that you may have difﬁculty relating to the differences between what I teach and what you may have learned from other bagua instructors. Sadly. not to mention Goju Karate. it is more fruitful in the beginning to spend most of your time analysing how bagua is different from what you already know. I have been faced with such a need several times. however. Hung Gar. While I don’t insist that you immediately stop training in any discipline or martial hard style in order to learn bagua from me. the average hard stylist may derive considerable health beneﬁts from practising bagua qigong alone. and has someone to continue training with back at home over the following months and years.” I suppose the occasional genius. rather than making assumptions about the similarities. the guest instructor—not to mention the certiﬁcates and t-shirts that they hand out at North American workshops. Sometimes.LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG
21
Perhaps. Some of what you will be exposed to are simply variations of other valid interpretations and can be ignored. even if they continue to practise their old martial disciplines.

the teaching should beneﬁt the students on some level. and not just stroke the ego of the teacher. and you will reap the interest when you are old!
. there is an interesting Chinese expression which states that learning bagua or any internal art is like putting money in the bank—make a small deposit every day. and some emphasise the competitive aspect of the art. My one caveat is that the teacher should have what one of my instructors told me his teacher had called (in broken English) “a good heart for the people. Speaking of money.22
CHAPTER ONE
CONCLUSION
While some teachers and styles are better than others. or ﬁll his pockets with money. providing you practise enough to make progress and enjoy the practice enough to continue to do so. As long as teachers have skill and bring some of that skill to their teaching. each according to his or her capacity. don’t make too many withdrawals. you will beneﬁt. there are many different valid approaches to bagua: some emphasise the health aspect. some emphasise the self-defence stuff.” In other words.

can impede or block the smooth and balanced ﬂow of Qi within the body and affect the health in various ways. and maintain an optimal amount of internal energy. always seeks to balance itself. any valid system of qigong. and having a balance of Yin and Yang energies throughout the the body. various methods can also be used to ensure the production of a normal amount of Qi. Qi. with further skill and effort. restoring efﬁcient body mechanics. like water. and its energy system. Practised with competence and over the long-term. I answered that this. lumps dug from the earth.Chapter Two
Fundamentals: Standing and Moving Qigong
Practising Qigong (literally translated as “energy” or “work done with skill”) is about loosening. is said to be good for the Qi. However. and unify your mind and spirit. Without doubt. In the same way. and spirit in a way that can be likened to reﬁning crude ore into iron ingots and eventually.
. but it was important not to confuse the symptoms of the ﬂow of intrinsic energy with Qi itself. relaxing and strengthening the body. but the ﬁnal product shines beautifully and has much more use in daily life. feelings of warmth. the heat in an electrical wire is a by-product of the ﬂow of electricity through copper or aluminium and is not the electricity itself. as well as circulate it throughout the body for a variety of purposes. and other sensory phenomena was a common manifestation of such training. Fortunately. imbalances will often clear up on their own. All three are manifestations of the same thing. reﬁne its quality and balance its circulation. long term qigong training can change the body. Accomplishing this will also calm. into high-grade steel. strengthen. along with trembling. emotions. Any physical or emotional injuries. as well as muscular tension. whether done as part of an internal martial system or solely as a health practice. I once had an e-mail message from someone who wanted to know if it was Qi he was feeling when he experienced a magnetic repulsion and attraction in his hands doing qigong. tingling of the skin.

Qi is inherited from our parents. An ailment of the mind will be reﬂected in the body. and learning to quiet the mind creates a powerful tool for change. get too little sleep. Some are impossible to analyse empirically. One key concept in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is your body. And now for the bad news. work in an environment that stiﬂes your body and spirit. called Holistic in the West. no matter how seemingly small or insigniﬁcant. Similarly. While you don’t have to be an expert in qigong or Chinese medical theory to beneﬁt from your bagua training. Many of us think we want to get rid of our bad habits. and its quality is ﬁxed and dependent on their heredity. This attitude. is also seen in the interpretation given to the functions of the organs.
AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL QIGONG THEORY
The following is a simplistic overview of a fascinating. relatively inert and useless. Both are the same substance in essence. or deﬁcient in certain parts of the body. Some make sense from a traditional Chinese perspective. Every way. the fascia. and age at your conception. and some make sence from a Western logical perspective. But through your training you may awaken to understanding that what you are doing is harming you. Our basic. and connective tissues. a process that seems to have stopped in many people. When you are in good health. They affect one another at all levels. Radical change can mean the loss of attitudes or habits that deﬁne us as we are. in which you change your lifestyle and attitudes contributes to the process of maturing. eat “garbage. It can also mean the loss of relationships as people react badly or uneasily to how we are changing. My own gut feeling is that deep relaxation and quiet attentiveness eventually encourages both hormonal and attitudinal shifts in the body. If your Qi is blocked. the muscles.24
CHAPTER TWO
The process of reﬁning makes the substance stronger and more ﬂexible as a lump of iron ore. mind. you can positively affect the quality of the Acquired Qi that you create within yourself to. Qigong makes this reﬁnement happen in a number of ways. health. disease can more easily occur. It is unrealistic to believe that you can continue to smoke. becomes a sharp and ﬂexible high-carbon stainless steel kitchen knife. endure or provoke abusive relationships. For whatever reasons. including skin surface. but one is the product of time and effort. but then discover that the process of change is frightening and disorienting. and spirit are all interdependent. yet counteract all this by doing the Circular Form or standing and moving qigong. your Qi is strong and abundant and ﬂows smoothly to all parts of the body. taking chronic tension out of the spine. any physical ailment must affect the emotions and spirit. Innate or Original. at
. complex and disputed subject. by a general overhaul in your lifestyle. It is impossible to change the quantity or quality of this Qi through qigong. it can certainly help if you understand some of the key concepts.… This process also fuels. and is fuelled. However.” abuse alcohol or drugs.

Yin and Yang is a way of expressing this idea of balance and constantly changing state of equilibrium. carry Qi to the skin surface and to every cell of the body. According to TCM. there are also numerous minor channels (lou) which. in turn.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
25
least partially. One of the main aspects of Qi—Weiqi/Protective Qi—is to act like an invisible buffer against infection and “bad Qi” entering the body. and the three Yang meridians from the hand to the head. each is connected to and named after one of the main organs of the body. requires the body and mind to be in harmony. This is the only horizontal “power line” in the body. The former are each connected to major organs or regulate organic processes. Good health depends largely on a smooth ﬂow of Qi along the channels. and the three Yin meridians from the foot to the abdomen and chest. In the lower (or Yin) part of the body the three Yang meridians extend from the head to the foot. avoiding or minimising excessive behaviour. Three of the extra meridians are particularly important: • The Governing Vessel (du mei) starts at the bottom of the torso. compensate for weak Innate Qi. the main points on these “power lines” have been charted for thousands of years. Qi circulates through twelve main (ching) and eight extra meridians (mei) close to the surface of the skin. Although new points are constantly being discovered. The latter are storage reservoirs and major conduits for internal energy. Conversely. pain along the heart channel. good thoughts. or for Qi prematurely wasted through poor living habits. from the tip of the inside edge of the little ﬁnger along the inside of the arm to the armpit. Externally. can indicate a heart problem. • The Girdle Vessel (dai mei) runs around the waist from the area of the kidneys in the back to the navel. maintaining supportive relationships) are essential for making real progress through your qigong training. In the upper (or Yang) part of the body the three Yin meridians run from the chest to the hand. • The Conceptor Vessel (ren mei) begins at the tip of the tongue and runs down the centre of the front of the body to the bottom of the torso. each component having a Yin and Yang relationships. like capillaries in the circulatory system. is a major player in the immune system. Practising qigong of any kind should be seen as one of the mechanisms of living a healthy lifestyle. one of the shortest. each channel connects with the skin at speciﬁc hollows or the acupuncture points. The twelve meridians are said to consist of six pairs. open. For example. stimulate. In addition to the twelve meridians and the eight vessels. modern medicine tells us.
. and strengthen this crucial vessel and all the organs in the middle of the torso. like a rope that ties together all the others that run vertically. This is said to massage. This is why there are many qigong exercises designed to twist the waist. Internally. especially to the bone marrow—which. nourishing food and drink. Imbalance in a channel can manifest itself in its related organ and vice versa. healthy living habits (clean environment. goes up the spine and over the top of the head to the upper palate. This.

and masculinity. both Yin and Yang are in balance. Modern experts tend to compare Qi to electricity in terms of its quality and function. Yang originated as the character for the sunny side of the slope. research. darkness. For example. and practice more scientiﬁc from a Western perspective and to divorce it completely from any association with the religious roots of the art. you go to a qigong doctor for advice or treatment. When they don’t. downwardness. increase. light. but Qi is no more deﬁnable in objective terms than any other subjective aspect of life. This is as good an analogy as any for modern students. Any physical or emotional injuries or muscular tension. and the term is associated with such qualities as cold. and some forms of moving qigong involve moving the legs but limit movement in the arms and torso. responsiveness. Humans seem very fond of analysis and categorisation and. theory. blockages and imbalances will often clear up on their own as Qi always seeks to balance itself. But. or lack thereof. has caused the pain or weakness you are experiencing in your legs. In recent years in China there has been a tendency to make qigong medicine. Yang (Traditional Chinese) Everything has both Yin and Yang qualities. and many methods cannot be neatly pegged into only one category. Fortunately. there are several major categories of Traditional Chinese Qigong: self-healing. excitement. These broad categories can be approached from a Taoist or Buddhist. upwardness.26
CHAPTER TWO
The written character for Yin originally represented the shady side of a slope. the Qi circulatory system supplies energy to every cell of the body. There has also been a concurrent boom in the amount of qigong practices available to the Chinese community and.
Yin. through
. activity. stimulation. passivity. medical and spiritual. Tibetan. If your Qi is in harmony. martial. vigour. It is the interaction between these two forces that creates Qi. can impede or block the smooth and balanced ﬂow of Qi within the body and affect the health in various ways. Like the blood circulatory system. a Chinese doctor will try to discover whether or not your kidneys are processing liquid wastes as they should. and femininity. There has been much blending over the centuries. If the pain is accompanied by related symptoms such as a lack of willpower and mental acuity this points to an imbalance of energy in the kidney and/or its meridian. decrease. Some methods of passive qigong do involve slow movements of parts of the body. there is some crossover. and if their vitality. quiet. It is associated with qualities such as heat. as a result. or even Muslim perspective. movement. The classical analogy compares Qi to water which always seeks to ﬂow into and ﬁll the low from the high. Any of these categories can be approached through passive or active methods.

” “You must follow ‘the true path’ to develop Qi. for the same chronic medical conditions. as one can see from the following comments of different experts. They roam
. the other group was told that they were also being treated with the same appropriate points. but the needles were actually inserted randomly on their backs. they are hardly unanimous in their opinions: “Do any method correctly and Qi will be manifested without effort. the therapeutic uses of acupuncture and acupressure on humans is well established in the Orient. rather than assist. Sorting through such a mass of information in English. let alone in Chinese. It is even harder to experience and absorb it. Unfortunately for those seeking enlightenment on what Qi is and how to cultivate it. Both groups reported roughly the same amount of improvement in their respective conditions. to the Western public. or your energy. In addition. Qigong and the internal martial arts seem to attract more than their fair share of students who would rather discuss and theorise over a cup of tea than practise with any intensity.” “Qi is not a mysterious force. or that of others. equally respected and skilled. However. is largely a question of having faith. Do you have to be an expert on electricity and the inner workings of your electrical can opener to use one? Many of the best instructors are fervent believers in the traditional approach to Qi and its cultivation. One group was treated with needles inserted into the requisite points according to the principles of TCM. Qigong is a complex subject. is difﬁcult enough. a wealth of traditional and modern documentation has been translated and released on this subject. It is sad that you frequently come across such approaches. Despite studies of this nature. no matter how you approach it. In pragmatic terms.” “Qi must be cultivated with great attention to detail and under constant supervision. make you a healthier person on many levels. In the end. or you will harm yourself. the process of investigation. on the back. in the long run. you can practise safely on your own.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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the immigration of many qualiﬁed qigong teachers and video/DVD sales. Its successful use on a variety of domestic animals also indicates that Qi manipulation has a real effect. it is essential for the serious bagua student to research this subject and decide what he or she feels and what to incorporate in his or her training. Others. Qigong is not a question of trying to master or control yourself.” Such statements often tend to obscure. it is important to keep an open mind. good intentions. I remember watching a television documentary a few years ago in which two groups of volunteers were given acupuncture treatment. believe that the traditional approach has little relevance to modern students and that the beneﬁts gained come largely through the physical beneﬁts of the exercises. and of letting go of your doubts and preconceptions. the ultimate master. At some point. scientiﬁc studies in the West and in China are inconclusive in regards to what is really going on in terms of healing. it would seem to me that cultivating internal energy. Many beginners are desperately seeking the ultimate truth. It would seem to me that analysing the form and function of Qi is of less value than knowing if speciﬁc standing qigong practices will.

your internal energy is better able to circulate properly.” and the Chinese government. your legs and lower back may get quite sore at ﬁrst. The history of China is rife with groups that started off relatively innocently and then became full-blown cults or agents of social revolution. the competent ones usually agree on common principles and are good examples of whatever they practise—emotionally and physically sound human beings with lives and/or families outside of what they teach. in particular. breath.28
CHAPTER TWO
restlessly from teacher to teacher. Body Even though the body doesn’t seem to do much work aside from holding itself up in a relatively still fashion or moving simply in circles. The legs and hips are loosened. not too little. Those looking for medical cures or emotional security are especially prone to being exploited on many levels. relaxed. However. This is normal. However. and the joints relax. As the joints and body loosen. The energy inside cannot ﬂow easily until these bends are removed. Think of it as the Qi circulating through hoses which are often partially impeded by kinks of varying degrees. and energised to easily and efﬁciently support the head and internal organs. Standing and moving are not as comfortable as sitting qigong and meditation. circulation improves often lowering high blood pressure. especially if you are tense by nature or don’t have strong legs. There are many aspects to co-ordinate. Last but not least. using a standing posture means there is less chance of getting drowsy. The last twenty years have been a fruitful period in both China and North America for the proliferation of qigong “masters. Leaving extremism of any kind aside. and mind. looking for someone they can obey and idealise rather than learn from. in my opinion. the spine straightens. keeping the eyes open reduces the chance of falling asleep and collapsing. it is actually relearning muscle usage and body mechanics. even if you practise correctly.
REGULATING THE THREE TREASURES
Even with competent instruction and effort. In this way the entire body learns to use only the right muscles to do the task at hand—not too much effort. a complex martial discipline like baguazhang is difﬁcult to master. and their muscles and tendons are strengthened while the knees relearn to naturally provide shock absorption for the spine and head. the simpler standing qigong methods minimise the physical aspects of training. As the lungs expand. The spine is stretched. qigong experts rarely completely agree on details of their methods.
. The torso and arms must. be relaxed. is not altogether at fault for cracking down on certain qigong cults it views as dangerous. from style to style. so it is easier to concentrate on the fundamentals of movement and posture in what is called Regulating the Three Treasures: body. Similarly. By contrast. so you must concentrate on the principles of relaxation and body balance in order to do the exercises for extended periods of time.

At basic levels. leave your body. Counting each slow. Some authorities believe that women should always concentrate on the middle tan-tien which is located energetically in the area of sternum/upper chest. thus. compress the muscles gently to “empty” the belly. or become superman. It is quite common. the conscious mind must be encouraged to give up its obsession with endless mental activity. This augments the capacity of the lungs. so don’t get embarrassed if you belch or pass wind.
. In this way you retrain the diaphragm to rise and fall over a greater range so that the lungs are used more efﬁciently. except during their menses. while the improvement in diaphragmic movement also produces a massaging effect on the internal organs. and deeply.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
Breath
29
Deep abdominal respiration helps to ensure that more fresh air is drawn in. Just be attentive and connected to your breathing and to your external environment. and endocrine functions. reproductive. blood circulation in the abdominal cavity is improved. when they should not practise or use the middle tan-tien temporarily. reproductive. and this won’t be as evident. improving the functions of the digestive. and endocrine systems. This should be a gentle and long-term process of relearning how to breath evenly. fully. “ﬁll” and relax the lower abdomen. Imagine that you have ball of energy about the size of a cantaloupe co-existing with your organs. tissues. and bones in the lower torso. urinary. hypnotise yourself. This produces a massaging effect on the internal organs which is conducive to better digestive. You want your entire lower torso to gently expand and compress. urinary. Inhale and exhale quietly through the nose while keeping the tongue pressed lightly up against the roof of the mouth. Others say that the best points to concentrate on for both sexes are Yongquan. Mind Although it is difﬁcult to do. Over the months. and more stale air is discharged with each breath. As you exhale. The Chinese refer to it as a “monkey” because it is always scampering about being noisy and causing trouble. as is paying attention to the physical movement in the lower abdomen. With stronger diaphragm and abdominal muscles. They are located on the midpoint of the bottom of each foot. These are the only acupuncture points on the bottom of the feet and are major gates for energy moving in and out of the body through the earth. Sinking the Qi to the lower tan-tien does not mean overinﬂating the lungs or swallowing air—you are not trying to become a human blowﬁsh! Use only the process I just described (called Natural Breathing) in which you relax the lower abdomen when inhaling and contract the lower abdomen when exhaling. to get quite gassy when practising. even though you want the breathing to feel as if it is centred in the lower torso. Don’t try to keep your chest from moving. your digestive system will adjust. As you inhale. this does not mean that you go into a trance. Other experts say that women can use the lower tan-tien. communicate with spirits. as a beginner. gentle exhalation is an excellent way of doing this.

” To describe it in a more mundane manner. Use them if you like as a memory aid. when you are concentrating and correcting yourself on a conscious level. The Chinese call this the “Ten Thousand Things. an internal arts expert that I respect a great deal. and Taiji gave birth to the universe as we know it. start with the top of the head and work your way down:
.” as I like to call it.
BAGUA STANDING QIGONG METHODS
There are a host of standing qigong methods that are either unique to bagua or have been adapted for use from other qigong systems by various instructors. which leads—you get the idea! Hence. of how gravity and bad habits (i.e. Again. which leads to stillness. In Western terms you can compare it to the existential void that existed before creation or the big bang. effort and ongoing practice are the keys. leaning back slightly. you won’t be able to remember all (or any) of these points when training on your own—don’t worry about it! As in all aspects of your training. the use of the Wuji Posture before and after more active qigong training methods and martial forms. stillness leads to movement. For a long time.30
CHAPTER TWO
Focusing the mind in different ways should be thought of as a precursor to mental emptiness which is a different state from being either thoughtless or of being brainless. the Chinese terms. It seems funny to most beginners that standing still and doing the minimum of physical work properly is the key to eventually moving properly—but there you are! You can also think of running through the following list of key points as a sneaky way of getting yourself to stand quietly before and/or after completing a more complicated qigong method or one of the forms. keeping more weight on one side than another) can affect the human structure as well as your bagua practice. if at all. Standing this way as an exercise in its own right is also a way of becoming aware. where appropriate. I have appended. It divided into the movement of Yin and Yang called Taiji (not to be confused with the martial arts that go by that name as well).. If going through this mental checklist while trying to stand accordingly. This “attentive non-attentiveness. is both therapeutic to the spirit and conducive to certain martial skills even though this is not martial practice per se. refer to Erle’s books and/or videos for details on practice for those methods that come from him. Quiet Standing (Wuji Posture) The word Wuji refers to a Chinese philosophical concept. For the ﬁrst few months you will only have the correct posture. Tim Cartmell. in progressive stages. suggests that standing this way for a few minutes when you ﬁrst get up in the morning can be a way of gently encouraging your body to remember a posture that is structurally efﬁcient and harmonious. eventually it will creep into your daily life. The methods listed in this manual are my interpretation of methods that I have practised and teach.

while the toes of the feet form a ninety degree angle in relation to the direction you are facing. (N. • the legs are relaxed. • the eyes are open but not focused on any details. and the area of your lower spine between the kidneys (mingmen—“Gate of Life”) is able to relax. • the tailbone is relaxed so that the pelvis is tilted very gently. • the crotch (kua—“bridge”) is relaxed. • the tip of the tongue is resting behind the two upper front teeth in gentle contact with the upper palate. From a traditional perspective this is.) • the forehead is smooth and free of furrows of concentration.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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• lift the top of the back of the head as if it is suspended gently from the ceiling. the knees are almost straight. the most important of practice. gently touching. relaxed. It expands as you inhale and compresses as you exhale. The only exception is the thumb which should be held a little farther away from the rest of the ﬁngers to form what is called the Tiger’s Mouth. • the neck is straight and comfortable. or are held comfortably parallel to each other. • the spine is long and relaxed. • the sternum is empty as if you have just sighed deeply (han shou—“hold something precious”). the ﬁngers long. • the armpits (kua—“bridge”) are relaxed and slightly rounded. the elbows only slightly bent as if you had a one pound weight held in each hand providing a gentle downwards traction to each limb. Doing this properly will also assist in keeping the chin at the desired angle.
. Try to keep a slight smile on the face. • the feet are held with the heels together. The corresponding space in the upper torso feels comfortable and gently expanded. as if it was lifting gently away and up from the centre of the chest. near or far. • the palms are hollowed. • the teeth and lips are closed. especially between the shoulders (ba bei—“draw/pull the back”). look at the big picture around you. • the arms and hands are relaxed and long. and the scapula should feel downwards. and slightly separated one from the other.B. One of these methods will feel more natural to you. use it. perhaps. as this encourages the many muscles in the face to relax. the shoulders are relaxed. relax and drop somewhat. and the perineum is lightly closed and lifted (ming dang—“close the inner groin”). • inhale and exhale quietly through the nose. Many of us carry a surprising amount of tension in the jaw and facial muscles. especially where it connects to the centre of the skull. • the abdomen is relaxed.

which coincides with the “extra” acupuncture point Yintang. Heating the lower tan-tien by working the leg muscles causes chemical changes to happen in the body—like lighting a ﬁre under a cauldron of liquids to cause steam to rise. make you a better person and/or a better martial artist. try to feel the circulation from the tan-tien through the arms and in and out of the ﬁngers or palms while doing this qigong..g. stored. spiritual. in the long run. is the most important as it also holds the internal organs and is the hub of many energy rivers.32
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• the toes are ﬂat. Basic Standing Qigong: Holding the Eight Mother Palms Standing this way is designed to create physical heat by bending the knees. but that is another story). The lower tan-tien literally means “elixir ﬁeld. Sink gently into the ﬂoor.
.” which is about three ﬁngers width below the navel. and the lower.” and is a term derived from the ancient Taoist alchemical experiments that resulted in gunpowder. The latter region is also commonly identiﬁed with Qihai (Conceptor Vessel #6). The various liquids are blended in a pot and boiled to produce steam which condenses after rising to produce a purer substance. or “Sea of Qi. which corresponds with the point Thrusting Vessel #2. The methods that Erle Montaigue recommends are safe. your tree is liable to be rotten inside. Their original goal in such research was to create potions and pills that could be used to create precious metals and bring physical immortality. liquid mercury. or used immediately as fuel. and a variety of metal alloys. where self-absorbtion and obsession are so commonplace as to be seen as the norm. you need to practise daily from 15–30 minutes at a time for at least one year before moving on to one of the moving methods of qigong. of the three. Some potions ended up causing madness (one of the by-products of lead or mercury poisoning) and eventual death in many of the alchemists. This. centre behind and between the eyes. just above the pelvic basin. these Taoists also experienced an altered state of consciousness accompanied by sensations of warmth and movement in one or all of three tantien regions of the body: the upper. And. To see long-term beneﬁts. I agree with those who say that what we have done in our modern life is forgot how to listen to our bodies. and the body’s weight is evenly distributed between both legs. the Me generation. the middle. The lower tan-tien also said to be the root of the tree of life. which creates heat in the lower torso. This is not the same as being obsessed with our inner workings as is common in Western society. which falls back down to be boiled again and further reﬁned before being consumed. said to be the receptacle of the lower tan-tien. the processes which should be natural. centre in the centre of the sternum. As an analogy to your personal practice. e. which coincides with the point Conceptor Vessel #17. emotional. You can think of it as a process similar to distilling liquids. During their meditative practices. physical. if you don’t take care of the roots. as well as at least one Chinese Emperor (which led to the ﬁrst major persecution of Taoists in China. no matter how healthy it looks on the outside. Practising Standing While Holding the Eight Mother Palms can. weight dropping into the centre of the sole slightly towards the heels. centre inside the torso.

but not exclusively. However. Details of Practice • Stepping into a shoulder-width Horse Stance with the left foot.” (particularly. Exhale and imagine it being expelled from the abdominal area up and out the ﬁngertips while doing so. and the Qi leads the physical effort.” including the mind and spirit. assume a doubleweighted stance. and effective—and magical in the best sense of that word—if you work at them with any regularity and diligence. • the tongue is pressed lightly onto the upper palate. Hold each palm for one to ﬁve minutes. • the wrists. I would recommend repeating the following description in quotations to yourself as you begin holding each of the eight palms. never try to force your breathing to be slower than normal. At least for the ﬁrst few months that you practise. so that the palms are concave and the ﬁnger tips are slightly clawed. which are lightly contracted. as well as the physical structure. • the spine. are normally held straight in relation to the ﬁngertips and forearms.” (considered the windows of the Soul in both Western and Eastern spirituality). has an elongated feel and a slight “C” shape. and muscles tissues. with the exception of two postures. bones.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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simple. “This heals the eyes.”
. as if you were starting to pick a pencil off the ﬂoor with them. “This heals the left side of the torso. “This heals the middle of the torso. • the legs should be bent with the knees aligned over the toes. it is wise to have a mental image to correspond with each posture. just relax and be patient. “This heals the lower spine and ming-men. with the chin pulled slightly in to help lift the top of the back of the head. • the ﬁngers are stretched apart with a slight tension. (You can rest for up to a minute between palms by keeping the hands in the lower position before moving onto the next when doing longer amounts of each consecutively. • the shoulders are rounded and the elbows hang. the digestive system). Heaven Palm Earth Palm Fire Palm Thunder Palm Wind Palm “This heals the head.” including the organs on that side of the body. It is often said in the traditional arts that the intention leads the Qi.) Inhale and imagine the Qi coming in through the ﬁngertips and descending to the lower tan-tien. With time you will ﬁnd that your breathing slows somewhat and eventually each breath will take about ten seconds each. from crown to coccyx. Symbolism of Each Palm: While holding each shape. with your feet parallel to one another. the skin.

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Water Palm
CHAPTER TWO
“This heals the kidneys. Do 8 or 16 of these breaths. There should be minimal movement of the body and the arms. All the weight of the body has dropped into and remains on the right leg. as has been playfully suggested on a couple of Erle’s bagua videos. nothing else matters as much.
. Basic Moving Qigong: Walking the Circle I have often read or been told that walking while holding the Eight Mother Palms is actually the foundation of bagua both as a healing and martial system and. and let the ﬁngers return to the Dragon Palm shape. bones. so that you can extend your left hand and left foot forward while the right hand covers the centreline and faces into the upper forearm of the left arm. and it can be found on his video produced in the mid-1990s that had the ﬁghting methods.
Mountain Palm Cloud Palm
Advanced Standing Still Qigong: Push the Palms Starting from the Wuji Posture.” including the organs on that side of the body. Exhale. the skin. shift the weight of the body onto the right leg. like most beginners. providing a mild or moderate cardiovascular workout in a small amount of space (like a hamster turning endlessly in its wheel but without the smell of cedar chips!) while calming the mind and spirit. the kidneys are thought to regulate and be linked to sexual functioning as well as the strength of the legs. wrong again! The essence of the art does lie in walking in circles. due to inclement weather. as well as the eight wrist releases. you can raise up too much Yang energy! I am not quite sure if this is what Erle calls this qigong method.” It is important to remember that in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Use a Changing Step to retract the left side and extend the right side so that you can do an equal number of breaths on that side. to do too much of their training indoors. In the long run. and muscle tissues. while retracting the palms. Do not move the weight from the rear leg and don’t use your arms to push—use your palms! It is important to not overdo this exercise as you can strain the muscles and ligaments in the palm and. But painting a circle in red paint on your wife’s shag rug isn’t always a solution. the eight kicking methods and a variety of training methods. Many who practise in Europe or North America are obliged.” “This heals the right side of the torso. in energy terms. The right Dragon Palm is facing the inside of the left elbow and forearm area. Well. In fact. Inhale and push with the centre of both palms while straightening the ﬁngers. but not quite in the way or for the reasons the average beginner would assume. walking the circle does what it is supposed to: strengthens the body in a variety of ways. and it can be tough for a beginner to walk a circle without having a pattern to follow. assumed that this was just a way to get us to put up with the tedium of basic training so that we could get on with the really important stuff—the various forms. “This heals the neck and upper part of the spine.

Similarly. the Natural Step.… In fact. although it is not often easy to get the use of such facilities for something like bagua practice. hug a tree today for a variety of reasons. it can certainly feel great to do your standing qigong with your arms embracing a tree. In parks frequented by Chinese practitioners. Stepping properly at a slow or medium pace is essential for learning how to move by
. one way to achieve a circular path is to walk around a torchiere-style ﬂoor lamp. which is normally used for walking the circle. There should be little or no weight on that heel as it touches the ﬂoor. Unfortunately. this footwork requires that your body weight stays on the rear leg as much as possible. pine sap is awfully sticky in the Springtime…. Of course. sort of. Using a tree as the focus of your circle is a venerable and legitimate aspect of many different qigong practices. which is a blink in the eye for Father Time. This method is more practical for walking on irregular terrain than the other major stepping method. It is better than chopping them down or beating on each other with the exuberance of macho youth! Details of Practice: The Tiger Step footwork. both solo and with a partner. followed by the outside of the foot. any of us with Scandinavian. all the weight should be on that leg. and in the Linear and weapons forms. or your palms held very close to the surface of the bark. there is a lot to be said for practising with trees in this way. many settle for getting the body mechanics. the most beneﬁcial time of the year to do this kind of qigong training was the Spring. you can use the circles painted onto the ﬂoors of gymnasiums used for basketball or ﬂoor hockey. the Slip Step. Also called. shift your weight to bend your knee and gradually let the sole of the foot touch the ﬂoor. and end up walking in a “ﬂoating” or “double-weighted” manner. and ants can become a problem in the Summer…. Traditionally. These are normally tall enough so that you can walk freely around its base while keeping one palm aligned with its shaft. resembles ordinary walking in that the heel touches down. But Fall and Winter practice could also be very beneﬁcial. I must admit that I was reluctant to try it years ago when ﬁrst told about it. and then the toes. So. in some bagua styles. Pines. you don’t have to be Chinese. It is usually used in walking the circle. Germanic or Anglo-Saxon blood had ancestors who were worshipping the oak trees in Europe as recently as the Dark Ages. However. The correct mechanics of the Tiger/Natural Step require that you land on the new foot with the toes up and the knee almost straight. especially when done with and/or surrounded by evergreen trees. and bystanders tend to think you are crazy if you are practising anywhere except in a park full of elderly Chinese. and you always move the front foot ﬁrst when initiating a step after having stopped. particularly when the trees were ﬂowering. by virtue of their longevity and vigour. and it can be bloody cold in the Winter…. Once the heel lands. inside bagua and in other internal systems. However.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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If you are obliged to practise indoors. and the leaves dropping on your head can be distracting in the Fall…. it is common to ﬁnd trees that have circular trails worn around their trunks in the grass or soil. While you shouldn’t actually stop moving each time you ﬁnish shifting your weight and dropping the foot—you should be able to do so. But. being particularly favoured for such qigong. As soon as the foot is ﬂat. and the other foot steps through to land relatively empty of weight on the heel so that the stepping process is ready to continue. in all seriousness.

which breaks the key alignment of the spine. but if you don’t have good balance. as most beginners will drop their heads to look down. For example. you swivel on your heels as a result of having shifted your weight and pumped your right palm towards the centre of the circle while retracting the left hand to its guard position near the right elbow. one after the other. lead the turning action with the hand which will be in the centre of the circle so that once you complete the spinning on the heels you have reversed directions on the circle. Learning to do this ensures that you can suddenly change direction if such is necessary. and your left hand leading into the circle as you walk counterclockwise. Now you can walk clockwise. and you must turn on your heels with both toes spinning around to the rear in an outside arc out of the circle.36
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repositioning a foot and only then smoothly transferring all of the body weight to that leg. and the easiest. as you are likely to blur the technical performance of each posture. which are common symptoms of walking for most beginners. change so that the left palm assumes the ﬁrst number heard while the other—the second number. Training Tips: • As soon as possible try not to look at your feet when walking the circle by yourself. Change direction using an inside or outside turn as appropriate. As the two numbers are heard. Great power is generated using this method. I suggest getting used to walking the circle while using only one palm posture until you can fairly easily do an inside and outside change. Record on audio tape random numbers from one to eight for a 15–30 minute time-span. keeping the palms stretched and the ﬁngers separated. get winded. method of changing direction. you should hold each palm while walking ﬁrst counterclockwise and then clockwise. and don’t have your feet in the proper relation to the circle and to each other. • It is counterproductive to go too fast. record two numbers on the tape recorder. Play the tape while walking and try to change very quickly to the number of that particular palm as you hear it said. or lose your balance if your body stiffens as you turn. The inside turn is the most commonly used. don’t lead with the correct hand and head/eyes. Counting the number of circles each way can help you keep track of time. which are the only ways that you will change direction while using the Eight Mother Palms. Once you have become accustomed to holding your arms in the proper positions. it is easy to lose your balance while executing. As you do this. If you are using a circle proportional to your height.
. Keep your eyes directly on your lead hand as much as possible while walking. Erle recommends another way of training which can be very helpful to the beginner. This will prevent most people from feeling dizzy or nauseous. count eight of your natural paces in a circular pattern to ﬁgure out what the proper size is for you. Remember. as well as being able to do inside and outside turns as required. It should take 15–30 minutes to walk the eight palms while holding eight repetitions each way. This is essential. you should hold the eight palms. you are facing into the circle with your weight on your left leg. The outside turn occurs when you are in a Scissors Stance. At a more advanced level. while walking the circle. before switching to the next. To change direction.

. As you perform a turn. Erle does not teach this particular set. then to the upper tan-tien and crown of the head. Advanced Moving Qigong: Holding the Eight Energies Using the following eight additional palms while walking the circle is designed to help the intermediate level student to develop the movement of internal energy: beginning with bringing the energy to the lower tan-tien and legs. always move the advancing arm over the retreating arm while doing an inside change. • Remember. and I will add that the changes done when changing direction and/or method contain the essence of these martial energies and directions. You will need a model that resets itself automatically after it beeps. they are equally designed to strengthen and heal the practitioner. there is very little consistency between the various styles. just below the navel. While it doesn’t matter ultimately which hand goes under and which goes over while switching.B. then splitting between backward and forward. in an effort to keep the shoulders from stiffening and rising up. I learned it elsewhere in recent years. The basic martial skill is deﬂecting a straight kick downwards. ﬁnally. not the old one. • Be aware of the common tendency to drop the lead hand too much while walking. As with most aspects of this internal discipline. you are more likely to injure your knees or ankles through poor alignment. then splitting between high and low. In general. these walking methods teach subtle martial skills. (N.) Downward Sinking Palms/Tiger: Both hands push downwards. Some systems identify the eight energies with corresponding animals. then. and remember to lead that action with the new palm. it is a good idea for beginners to be consistent. Walking the circle and changing smoothly from one to the other at equal intervals are an excellent supplements to form practice or holding the Eight Mother Palms while circling.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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• However. real and mythic. the tip of the longest ﬁnger on the lead hand should be aligned with the tip of your nose—assuming that your head is held properly suspended to begin with. no matter how quickly you walk the circle—whether on your own or with a partner—you should not develop any momentum from falling into position. if you go too slowly. • Change to the new palm as you change direction using either the inside or outside change. However. with the mental image of holding the Qi in the lower tan-tien. then to the middle tan-tien and arms. and it is harder to use the waist and the change of weight from one leg to the other to properly generate the turns and arm movements. and always move the advancing arm under the retreating arm while doing an outside change. • Using a timer that beeps at preset intervals can be a good way of training for a predetermined amount of time. then the chest is rounded and the sternum closed. For example. brush the forearms lightly together while switching. then opening the back while hollowing the chest. Try to change spontaneously as soon as you hear the alarm. tying them all together in the eighth posture. As with other forms of martial qigong.

closes the front of the chest. as well as rising through the ground. while the other spirals diagonally downwards and back. If doing several qigongs during the same practice session. palm up. Turning Palms/Hawk: One hand spirals diagonally forward and up.
GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR QIGONG PRACTICE
Practise the most active qigongs in the early morning and the less active and quiet ones in the evening. The basic martial action is deﬂecting downwards to strike forward and slightly upwards into the throat or jawline with both hands. This posture takes the energy that has been brought to the middle tan-tien and allows it to ﬂow up to the upper tan-tien located behind the Third Eye Point (Yintang). makes the shoulders very rounded. Focus on the palms as if you were holding something small and round in the hollow of each palm. The idea is to be in accordance with the natural rhythm of the day. This posture opens up the energy in the back. the other arcs above the head. This on guard position is the “signature palm” of our style and combines all the other energies and lines of attack and defence. The wrists are slightly Yang. and descending from the Heavens through the spine. The practitioner imagines that the Qi is ﬂowing through the arms in a circular loop.
. you learn to separate the energy between high and low. and thrusting forward to counter-attack with the same hand. palm up. Twisting-Turning Palm/Dragon: One hand is held over the centre of the circle while the other is open near the elbow. the hands are being held as if they are cradling a bowling ball. at about shoulder heigh. do the less active ﬁrst and progress through the more complex in the AM and reverse that sequence in the PM. The basic martial action teaches the cutting aspect of the edge of the hands for both offensive and defensive purposes. This posture helps to connect the the lower tan-tien to the middle tan-tien in the solar plexus and to spread the energy out to both palms in a balanced manner. In holding this posture. as if crashing/crushing through any obstacles. palms up. The basic martial skill is cutting with the edge of the hand to deﬂect. Heaven and Earth Palms/Lion: One hand is extended into the circle. while still remaining full and complete. down.38
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Double Lifting Palms/Crane: The arms are extended to the sides. Embracing Palm/Ape: The forearms are held together with both palms upwards. Double Crushing Palms/Bear: This posture expands the energy in the chest by pushing the palms outwards. The basic martial action deﬂects downwards and crushes both palms forward and downwards through the attacker’s chest. and allows the Qi to ﬂow into the hands. The basic martial skill is deﬂecting with the back hand and breaking an arm at the elbow with a striking lock. The basic martial action is to strike down while striking upwards. This posture will help you to understand splitting/ folding energy. Upper & Lower Standing Palms/Snake: One hand is held high and the other low. front and back. and away from the body. The image is of pushing the arms out.

Yang Jwing Ming in one of his excellent texts on qigong recommends at least 24 hours of abstinence from sexual activity before and after qigong. there tends to be a wide variety of opinions. try to do it on a balcony or at least facing a large window. it is important to have a healthy diet that contains sufﬁcient and balanced foods while avoiding greasy or sweet things. you are even less likely to get enough practice to see any real beneﬁt. particularly in the Springtime. Don’t train in either an excessively cold or hot environment. The breathing should be encouraged to deepen and slow down. and can result in a famous qigong condition called Wet Rug.. when in mourning for a loved one. and you will be more likely to catch a chill. If you force the intensity of your training.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
39
Practise outside whenever possible. “Yesterday I was ‘one with the universe. If you think of your training as being partly to reﬁne and produce a better quality of Qi. progress will not happen naturally. Conversely. breathing. In regards to the latter. Don’t confuse the forest with the trees—symptoms of Qi movement are transitory and should not be the object of obsessive fascination (e. if you only practise when you feel like it. When doing qigong your pores will be open. but don’t try to force yourself to breathe correctly. “Holding it in” will impede your concentration on stance. or engage in sexual activity for at least one hour before and after practising qigong. when tired from the stress of daily life). Dr. don’t continue to train if you are wearing excessively sweaty clothing. as you want to avoid getting chilled from both a traditional Chinese and Western medical perspectives. It is hard to concentrate if your stomach growls constantly. and you can experience cramps or bloating.”). Don’t eat a big meal. For example. as causing extra tension trying to force your breathing is hardly a worthwhile path. With particular regard to food. when your stomach is full.g. and being natural is one of the cornerstones of internal training. if possible. Conversely. especially if you have a view of nature. don’t train if you haven’t eaten in some time. In particular. I want it to happen again today. and visualisation. drink alcohol. I have found that forcing myself to train when I least feel like it has been beneﬁcial in ﬁghting whatever stress was causing the reluctance to train in the ﬁrst place (i. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that no food or a severely restrictive diet will somehow purify you or make you a better practitioner.e. avoid standing in the draft of an air conditioning unit when inside or facing the wind if practising outside. and try to do the quieter methods barefeet. Don’t force the breathing in any way. abdominal breathing and certain moving methods will affect your digestion. Similarly. don’t practise with a full bowel or bladder. That includes trying too hard to use abdominal or natural breathing patterns. If you must practise indoors. but that doesn’t mean that they are not beneﬁting from their training. Similarly. Have a light nutritious meal before training.. Nor is it necessary to abstain from meat or dairy products unless you do so on ethical grounds or have an allergy to the latter. Many people practise for years without dramatic experiences or revelations. Don’t try to adhere to a rigid schedule of progress—such concepts are ridiculous in terms of becoming healthier physically and emotionally.’ and it was marvellous.
.

. Don’t move your arms from the required position to scratch a sudden itch. Late Summer.e.e. Your training can interfere with your body’s natural readjustment to the new weather patterns. partly because female students each tend to experience different effects of their training. Women should stop or moderate their training during menses and focus on the middle tantien while doing zhanzhong. Doing so interrupts the postures you should be holding or doing at the time and means that the natural rebalancing of your body is impeded when your hands wander about consciously in this way. or are in the acute phase of an illness. there can be an effect on the severity and duration of periods. which psychologically is often interpreted as repressed anger. though. for those women who practise standing and moving qigong regularly. and I think common sense and the weather should dictate your clothing when you train. or are very angry.. evenly distributed on the surface of the skin. and I experience less PMS than I used to.“My periods seem shorter and less painful. because synthetics can impede Qi ﬂow. linen. Don’t practise standing qigong if you have a fever. i. Certainly. Moving qigong at a moderate pace is better for practising when angry or very depressed. This is a difﬁcult subject to hand out advice on—partly because I am a man.” but “If I stand while menstruating I become very uncomfortable. It is easy to get carried away with rules like this. ﬁxating on a speck of dirt on the window or a particular branch on a tree) as this can also disturb proper attentiveness and make you feel dizzy. Don’t wear tight clothing. Traditional experts also feel that long sleeves and long pants help to keep the Weiqi (our innate protective energy) where it belongs. silk. Traditionally.g.40
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Some authorities emphasise the importance of wearing long-sleeved clothing made from natural materials. Normally. cotton. and Winter). the lower and middle tan-tien areas are considered physical pumps for energy.” or “My periods are longer and heavier than they used to be. Summer. but don’t get mesmerised by one point of reference in the scenery or your environment (i. but it is also interesting to note that many of those who advocate the importance of wearing silk or cotton nowadays are also selling qigong outﬁts made of these same materials! It is also important to acknowledge that some modern synthetics are excellent for resisting wind chill and wicking sweat away from the skin. or brassiere. Don’t practise when there is a dramatic change in the weather. belts. not others. This doesn’t apply if you happen to be doing one of the qigongs designed to aid in adapting to the changes of the ﬁve traditional Chinese seasons (Spring. Fall.. as they may restrict the easy expansion of the lower tan-tien or natural chest expansion. this is why it is very important not to restrict the in-and-out expansion of these areas. which minimises chilling when training outside. e. Such sensations are a stage many practitioners go through.” Make sure that you don’t close your eyes completely when training. instead of leaking away from the arms and legs when the limbs are uncovered. you will feel more cheerful after having a more vigorous workout—thanks partly to the production of endorphins from the physical demands of the moving qigong. This is beneﬁcial for some.
. I have always preferred the feel of natural materials in my own training.

Your body/mind. probably. or obsessed over the details of your training—stop and go for a long walk. have told me this is a frequent by-product of practising qigong and is a good sign. or just can’t seem to focus on anything. consult a recognised qigong doctor. or friends. as opposed to moving qigong.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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Don’t practise when angry.” and it is easy to overestimate the value of your previous experiences. Erle Montaigue included. DON’T TRY TO SELF-DIAGNOSE AND HEAL SERIOUS AND/OR ACUTE MEDICAL CONDITIONS EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH METHODS THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM ME OR ANOTHER BAGUA TEACHER—CONSULT A REPUTABLE QIGONG OR TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE DOCTOR. When in doubt. This tingling can feel like a mild case of when your foot goes to sleep. You feel sore or in pain: I am afraid that some pain and discomfort is normally present in the ﬁrst few months of training. especially if you are a smoker or female. For most of us “pride goes before the fall. or the telephone. doesn’t like standing still. or to feel cold when practising standing quietly. avoid losing your temper. However. as you have experience in other meditation methods.
COMMON SYMPTOMS EXPERIENCED DURING OR AFTER TRAINING
You feel dull and scattered: On days when you are exceptionally tired. and it sends you signals designed to make you stop.
. Try tensing and releasing your toes if the pain is in your feet. If the pain is in the legs or lower back. don’t do qigong exercises that you are not physically or emotionally prepared for. You feel cold all over or in speciﬁc parts of the body: In the ﬁrst few months of regular training it is common to have sensations of excessive cold in the extremities. if you are shopping around and learning methods elsewhere. Within reason. Finally. try holding the palm shapes closer to the body. If the pain is in your shoulders or arms. This is particularly bad for the Qi and the liver. try rocking the body forward and back or side to side. whether you are doing everything correctly or not. This may be the symptom of a deﬁciency of Yang energy. You feel numbness or tingling in the limbs or hands: Some experts. it might also be the symptoms of nerve damage in the affected limb or of something like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It is human nature to feel that you don’t have to do basic qigong exercises. do something physical that interests and stimulates you in a pleasant and moderate way. stop training that method and consult a qigong doctor or acupuncturist. If you are interrupted by family. ride your bike. if the numbness or tingling continues after you stop doing qigong. Don’t resume practising immediately unless you have been able to restore your sense of calm. It means the Qi is trying to get through properly in areas where it has been blocked. If the feeling of cold is accompanied by pain. or it can feel like the vibrating/buzzing sensation that you get when you place your hand on a small motor housing. you should persist. or mentally fatigued.

I ﬁnd that I tremble and shake much less than a few years ago when I do my standing. You get a Headache or Aching Eyes: Headaches are often a sign of Qi congestion in the head and can be relieved by doing “grounding” methods or by massaging the appropriate acupuncture points on the body. when you feel disoriented and are not quite awake. Nowadays. as you become more relaxed and stronger internally. sometimes violently. although you may experience aftershocks a few moments later. Many experts say that you must experience a probationary period of time in which you tremble. And when it still happens. the practice of standing and moving qigong will be very beneﬁcial to your sleep patterns. If you are used to doing meditation or are strong but relaxed to begin with. if you are training outside on a very hot day—guess what? You should sweat!!! You become Frightened or Startled: Many experts advocate training alone in a quiet and private environment. you are doing it wrong! However. The truth. I rarely sweat when doing the methods I practise regularly. you may never experience any signiﬁcant shaking.B. It is important to make sure that your posture is sound when doing any form of qigong. it is usually on days when I was feeling tenser or more tired than usual. Perhaps. which means that you will experience pain for that reason. you don’t go too fast or try too many repetitions of the moving methods. If you sweat while doing self-healing methods. However. I have experienced this and seen it happen to others in my classes. for all or part of your qigong. Others say that you should never consciously induce trembling or shaking as a means of inducing physical relaxation or of encouraging the Qi to ﬂow freely through minor blockages. it is important not to do methods that are too stimulating before bedtime. i. depending on the season. Although. You can become very sensitive to outside stimuli—a sudden noise or a touch. and the time of month. your health. where the shaking is more likely to be localised in the arms and shoulders and caused by excess muscle use or tension. probably. Trembling: You could write a book on this subject alone. and you are releasing stagnant Qi and toxins through the pores. It can “disturb and scatter the Qi”—as the traditionalists would say—so that you feel agitated and upset for quite sometime afterwards. Some experts maintain that your training should eventually reach the point when you can continue in a state of sung even though “Mount Tai should collapse at your feet.e. or sharp. You must also discriminate between the shaking that happens when you are doing standing still exercises as opposed to moving methods. Don’t ignore pain that is agonising. you can also be standing with your butt stuck out and your spine arched. You experience excessive sweating even though you are standing still: There are several streams of thought on sweating in qigong.42
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Of course. lies somewhere in between. you are too tense or using too much muscle. I was sweating like a pig when doing certain methods for the ﬁrst few months. And of course. or that persists after your training session. You may experience aching eyes if you are staring too much in general. many experts interpret sweating as a sign that you are doing the methods properly..” You have difﬁculty sleeping: In general. you may ﬁnd that
. or when you are doing methods that affect the liver or strengthen the eyes. it is like the phenomena you can experience when wakened during a dream. Speaking from my own experience. An episode of shaking should subside fairly quickly. N.

and learning how to relax as much as possible while still doing work. The one-legged standing Breathing Palms Method is also time-effecient method of martial qigong. if you eat to compensate for depression or being overstressed. It is designed to teach fundamentals of posture and body mechanics. sometimes. A rule of thumb is to practise the most active methods in the morning and the quieter methods in the evening. and partly due to a gradual change in how you approach eating on an emotional level. and don’t be surprised if you don’t start being interested in such activity again if your interest had waned because of poor health or being stressed out. too much standing is not good for an individual. “Oh. there you go—perhaps I overdid it and should have listened to my own good advice!
. especially when they don’t get a sufﬁcient amount of movement exercise. slowing the breathing. people who do a lot of standing qigong get hip troubles. although they rarely agree. He was apparently surprised until told that I did standing qigong and other internal martial arts. and how to stretch the ﬁngers and the palms. Some of the traditional methods are designed to restore normal functioning to the sexual organs. haemorrhoids) are common results for those who stand excessive periods of time. the most common cause of coughing is using too much muscle while doing methods that affect the lungs.
CONCLUSION
Standing qigong is a marvellous exercise for beginners. and becoming healthier in general can restore interest in such matters. Another good reason to quit! You get aroused while training: This is a very common side effect to qigong training and can be very disturbing to some people.g. and a fat person lose weight even though they are not trying to do so! Some methods are more effective than others in this realm. For example. However.. So. You are hungry all the time or have lost interest in eating: Qigong can have a profound effect on your metabolism.STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG
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any method will energise you too much if done too close to bedtime. It can be addictive. Don’t worry about transitory feelings of arousal while you train. Smokers may also ﬁnd that they have coughing ﬁts when doing even gentle methods. One of my taiji students was apparently recently telling her Chinese acupuncturist about the hip troubles that I have suffered in recent years. and the adjustment is partly due to abdominal breathing massaging the digestive system. The intermediate level of bagua student should concentrate on walking the circle as the primary qigong method. You start coughing for no reason: Assuming that you don’t have a cold or ﬂu. It is important to remember that the Taoists often had a very healthy attitude to sexuality and realised that sexual energy is an important aspect of a healthy life. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that obsessively standing still in weird positions is a symptom of certain neurological and psychological disorders. circulatory problems (e.e. On a purely physical level it can needlessly stress the body. Quite often it will make a skinny person regain an interest in food and gain weight. such cravings may cease as you become healthier through your training. i.” was his comment..

. There are a host of others that I never practised regularly available on his videos. Erle taught me other qigongs as well that I no longer practise or teach. and it is better to know a few training methods well and practise them regularly than to be a dabbler. but remember to focus in your daily training on those methods that are most beneﬁcial to your individual needs.44
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One last word of advice—time is inelastic. Feel free to experiment with those or with any competent methods you can learn elsewhere.

modern students quickly get bored if told to “hold that stance” or “walk the circle” class after class—and they might take their fees to another school!
DETAILS OF POSTURE
The Head The practitioner’s head must be held as if gently suspended and with the neck feeling long. and the money rolls in. The other way to approach this is to feel as if your head is being pulled upwards gently. I remember seeing a television documentary on the martial arts a few years ago. but there is an unfortunate tendency in modern commercial schools to focus on teaching those things that require less one-on-one supervision. perhaps. students often tighten the neck muscles in order to keep the head upright and the chin pulled in. as if suspended. Plus. due to their difﬁculty and complexity. basic training tends to be glossed over in favour of focusing on learning and practising a variety of forms. rather than repeating the basics of solo and ﬁghting practice. He was asked why so many modern martial arts schools seemed to focus on forms. the hours go by. Shihan John Bluming. It is better to imagine that a small object is resting on top of the back of the head and must be supported there through proper posture alone. It is worth repeating that the essence of bagua lies as much in regular and attentive practice of walking the circle by yourself as in the various forms and training methods. They were interviewing one well-respected long-term karate expert. like the strings of a marionette support its head. there is a tendency among modern martial artists to assume that the forms.…” Cynical. In many schools. the former is the garden where you grow all the ingredients for those recipes. “Instructors love teaching forms.
. The latter are recipes for nourishing food. As to forms practice for the sake of knowing another form. are the more advanced ways of training. Unfortunately. His answer was short and profound (you will have to imagine the heavy Dutch accent).Chapter Three
Fundamentals: The Empty-Hand Solo Forms
As I said in the previous chapter.

Conversely. the tongue stays up and behind the teeth. the Linear Form can feel quite imperative—like you are a barbarian charging and shrieking to throw yourself on the unsuspecting Roman legions marching past in the Teutoburg Forest. There are exceptions to this rule. In addition. of course. depending on their preferences and to the type of breath being
. with your head loose and unaligned. as much as the eyes. when using a cleansing breath by exhaling through the mouth. the ultimate goal is to bring a mindless attentiveness to your solo practice. easier said than done. (Yes. they must express attitude in the sense of looking forward through the lead hand or in the new direction once you start to move. This is a difﬁcult concept to get. The lips should stay gently closed.46
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As to the mind inside the head. issuing power by striking while using a HA sound will also mean that the tongue drops temporarily away from the upper palate. For example. If you change direction suddenly while moving from one posture to another. The tongue stays raised on the upper palate. of course. It take time to learn how to lead with the eyes and turn the head properly at the right moment. While there are different opinions on what type of facial expression (if any) is appropriate. and the teeth should remain in light contact. is responsible for maintaining a sense of where you are and where you are going while training. The eyes are also responsible for leading the body in a new direction when a change of direction is necessary. you are more likely to be injured or knocked out. as it should always be. the muscles of the upper shoulders and neck tend to stiffen or atrophy to some extent. The mind. the tongue will drop temporarily away from the upper palate. This is. On another day. and I certainly don’t experience it with any consistency during my training. You may ﬁnd that the type of expression can vary spontaneously depending on the type of form being done as well as your mood on a particular day. If you were struck in the head (remember the martial roots of bagua) or pulled suddenly by the arm. if you don’t exercise them. It is also hard to put into words and tends to vary with the form being done. the Circular Form may have a smooth and wave-like feeling—like being in a river and ﬂoating along in a mild current on a warm summer day. In general though. in all of the joints. One day. Learning to keep the tip of the tongue gently pressed up against the roof of the mouth and held behind the two front teeth is an integral part of the internal martial arts and qigong. Similarly. for that matter. The gaze should not be lowered even when the practitioner focuses inwardly. This is why you should supplement your form training with other exercises or qigongs that safely train a full range of motion in the neck and. I have watched too many historical movies over the years!) Even though the gaze of the eyes should be unfocused when doing the Wuji Posture. using your eyes properly but not allowing the head to turn. One of the reasons for not turning the head just any old way is it encourages the skull to be centred and gently raised. Instructors who have been trained in a traditional manner may talk about the importance of doing this in conjunction with lifting the Huiyin point between the legs when inhaling or exhaling. as the natural tendency is to turn the head instead of the eyes when changing direction. means that it can become difﬁcult to do some of the directional changes without losing your balance. my own feeling is that a gentle smile is most appropriate for setting the mood for solo training and relaxing the many small muscles of the face and jaw.

the admonition to straighten the spine does not mean to “iron it out. However. but some have to be tapped in the jaw once or twice before they realise how painful it can be to ignore the teacher about what seems like a meaningless detail. Small details. Similarly. like this one.. This ﬂow also stimulates the digestive system. to maintain a more efﬁcient flow of Qi through the Governing and Conceptor Vessels along the midline of the back and front of the torso and head respectively. as is often recommended. are what make up the bulk of one’s training once you are no longer a beginner. which in itself is also a very bad pun!) The Torso The entire spine to the top of the neck must be held straight but not stiff. where han means containing something fragile or “holding it carefully. I have noticed that a number of otherwise talented practitioners have had difﬁculty breaking the habit of letting the tip of the tongue protrude or keeping the mouth slack while training. ensures that these hormones are not wasted by being expelled. As Erle Montaigue has often said.” The S-shaped curves are meant to provide suspension so that your structure is ﬂexible and does not jar the brain and the internal organs with every step. However. It is one thing to constantly verbally remind someone that they should pull their tongue in and close their mouth. and by the way. some practitioners have interpreted han-shou as bending or hollowing the chest inwards. if you don’t make a conscious effort to only inhale through the nose. saliva is full of hormones.” (I say this only partly tongue-in-cheek. While the area of the ming-men must be relaxed. only partly in jest. “the internal arts are very green” (i. However. which may also help explain why a very common by-product of doing qigong is feeling hungry after you train.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
47
done. according to some experts with real skill in
.” and shou means chest. or while ﬁghting.e. a common internal arts misconception is to stifﬂy extend the spine in order to eliminate the curves that nature intended your spine to have. there is the issue of learning to avoid getting into a scrap that would otherwise never had happened if you had remembered your teacher’s good advice “to hold your tongue. From all this the seeds of true skill are sown. Such habits are more likely to develop when there is little or no contact to the head as in most modern martial arts. Oh. However. One of the most important rules of practice is han-shou. Over the years. Bad martial habits are easier to create than to correct. keeping the tongue lifted stimulates the production of saliva which moistens the membranes and also has antibiotic properties to defend against such infection. Deep breathing can dry the mouth out surprisingly quickly. and swallowing this ﬂuid during practice. in favour of recycling). and one such habit is failing to keep your mouth shut and your tongue in place behind the teeth and not between them while practising combat skills with a partner. leaving that oriﬁce more prone to infection by viruses and bacteria that more easily cross the membranes of the mouth and throat under such conditions—particularly. there are two other very pragmatic reasons to keep the tongue against the roof of the mouth. As han can also means “swallow” or “inward” in Chinese.

so it must be very relaxed and ﬂexible and must not tip to one side (i. or teachers of the martial arts. depending on the style they are learning and the strengths and weaknesses of each instructor. or professional bodyguards. Strong but not stiff. particularly those who are desk-bound in their daily work. tend to have very tense shoulder muscles and a slumped posture. but to decrease the use of the arms in favour of increasing the co-ordination of the arm expansion and contraction with the expansion and contraction of the body as a whole. The arms tend to be overused in many athletic endeavours and underused in the internal arts.. a more accurate interpretation of han-shou is to empty the chest or to let it do its job of “being empty” in terms of heart/lung function.e. When you see real masters of this art—and of any martial art that can claim sound physical body mechanics—there is always a beautiful straightness to their posture. and while it is desirable for a variety of reasons to understand Yin and Yang in those joints. The waist is in charge of horizontal turning and twisting. particularly in the palm and ﬁngers. forcing the shoulders forward and down. particularly for martial purposes. The palm should be curved and “soft. where ba means to stretch and straighten. Traditionally. it is impossible for them to work efﬁciently.48
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both the Chinese internal arts and the Chinese language (thanks to Tim Cartmell). They were already physically strong from years of working in the ﬁelds or from years of training. Raising the shoulders and pushing them forward violates the traditional stipulation ba bei.”
. will gradually develop an awareness of the spine being the controlling component of vertical circling. The goal is not to move the arms as if there is no range of mobility in the elbows. one hip mustn’t ever be signiﬁcantly higher than the other). It is important to remember that the early practitioners of the internal arts in China were either farmers. It can be very difﬁcult to get them to achieve an active relaxation of those areas. while bei refers to the back. The old masters offered a valuable piece of taiji advice that is certainly relevant in bagua as we do it: “If the movement is still not correct after the arms and legs have been corrected. Students through different exercises. They didn’t need building-up the way most modern students do! The wrists should remain relaxed throughout all the movements. It is even more important to avoid tension. If those organs are tight or constricted.” The Arms Modern students. The waist should be thought of as the crucial link between the upper and lower halves of the body. this will make it possible to lead the Qi down to the tan-tien. then the deﬁciency is probably in the waist. Do not try to fabricate the feeling by leaning forward. The lower abdomen should be like the chest—relaxed and empty—so that movement in that part of the body can be led by the back and the waist. It is a gross distortion of the intent of the early masters to tuck your butt in forcibly and round the shoulders all the time while doing qigong or the forms. The ﬁngers should be gently curved but not stiff and separated gently from one another. or sticking the neck out.

These sensations can be symptoms of enhanced Qi flow. body following the hands is not always inappropriate. Despite not having a very large degree of motion.… There is a strong thread in many traditional bagua styles of having the hands lead the body into position—as opposed to being pushed into position by the torso/waist and weight change. depending on the martial situation. They can also be symptoms that you are overdoing certain aspects of your training and that your limbs are protesting. The eventual aim is to have a gentle lifting feeling in the area that could be compared to wearing invisible underwear that is snug. the arms can rest at times. Sometimes merely shifting the hips in a rocking manner will provide the modicum of weight movement necessary to power a posture when there is not enough room to move the feet. In Erle’s forms and methods the waist will normally feel and act as if it powers and leads the action of the arms and hands. not to mention the weight of the body. In addition. Doing so is liable to cause tension and tends to cause the tailbone to tip forward. but at the same time don’t obsess about tucking them in. Many people are built so that it looks as if their bum is sticking out when it is not really affecting their postural integrity. As to which came ﬁrst: the hands or the body. not binding. Dang refers to the entire perineal area. heat and redness of skin. as well as feelings of fullness or tingling can follow. but your legs must always work while you are on your feet.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
49
If the wrong kind of focus is obsessively directed to the palms and ﬁngers. However. depending on the style that you follow). as is usually done in our bagua. as you sometimes do in bagua. sensations such as trembling. but are nothing special in the sense that a student should not chase experiencing such phenomena while practising. and must open and close in the same way that the shoulders must open and close in a co-ordinated manner. the crucial joints of the legs are worked very hard in that they are always bent more than in normal daily activities (sometimes very bent. In practice. this should be almost simultaneous. and lifting this area is often misconstrued as meaning that you must squeeze or forcibly lift the sphincter muscles. and instead try to remain relaxed so that the ligaments. It bears repeat-
. The Legs The hips are crucial to supporting the work of the spine and waist. It can be fascinating to try to explore how the various styles explore and label a common set of body mechanics and posture. muscles and tendons can be fully relaxed. they act as the leaders of the waist in many ways. Do not let the buttocks protrude. They must be relaxed and balanced. off-center from the natural vertical plane of the spine. Relaxation and sound posture (the knee and toes in vertical alignment) help the knees transmit the weight of the body from the hips to the ankles. the term ming-dang means to close the inner groin and buttocks area. During training. It is better not to pay any special attention to the rectum or area of the huiyin. A useful concept is to maintain the feeling of the torso lifting gently off the buttocks and staying centred over them. This is not a healthy exercise if done to excess and will only improve sexual function in certain cases that relate to weak muscles in that area. so it is a tricky concept to get. This applies even when you lean forwards and backwards. In Chinese martial arts.

the circlular forms and circle walking training methods are classiﬁed as pre-heaven to show that they provide the foundation for all further activities. I would suspect that every internal expert who deserves that label moves in that way.… Ask my wife. but must be learned and practised. behaviour. a preheaven ability. stable and mobile—whether he or she seems to be double-weighted. For example. Practitioners are instructed to keep the foot flat as in the Slip Step.” there are two major schools of thought. This kind of footwork and movement didn’t make sense to me from a logical perspective until I started doing it martially. he can reﬁne and improve upon his natural abilities and skate even faster. What I call “small step.
XIAN TIAN & HOU TIAN CONCEPTS
Xian literally means “before. To my mind. an individual may be able to learn skating without much training.50
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ing that your knees are not designed to be weight-bearing. but are meant to transmit your weight efﬁciently to your ankles and feet. this implies many years of experience. or more skilfully. This is genetic. Yang Style. hou means “after or behind” so that Hou Tian denotes skills and abilities that are learned or acquired after birth. or the way in which a cat can adjust itself while falling to land on its feet. or standing on the head! In essence. big step” has become so automatic and subtle that it seems almost magical to those who can not do it. it is also important to not clench the toes when trying to obey the teacher’s instruction to grip the ﬂoor or earth with your toes. as opposed to standing qigong. As to “weighting. apparently it happens frequently. perched on one foot. not learned. The ankles must be straight and relaxed to properly lead the feet. or to arch the sole in a natural manner—not overly ﬂexed or artiﬁcially ﬂattened when doing the Natural/Tiger Step. When moving. Of course. This is as much a mental activity as a physical one. hsing-i. With proper training and technique. Such forms are derived from the circular forms and are more speciﬁcally technique and ﬁghting oriented.” and tian means “the sky or heaven. They are built upon the pre-heaven. The more common version is that the weight is momentarily more or less completely on one leg while the other foot is repositioned. In most bagua styles. and then the weight is immediately shifted to the new leg. The other opinion suggests that eventually being “single weighted” is meaningless in that the practitioner is completely balanced. whether doing Chen Style. liu he ba fa. or whatever. bagua. post-heaven abilities. innate abilities.” This phrase is commonly translated into English as “pre-birth” or “pre-heaven” training and is used to denote innate abilities. and we would say he has natural talent. the latter expert (and they are very rare indeed) is moving internally all the time. even though he may seem still on the outside—like a gyroscope in its ability to right itself.
By contrast. For example. we now know that human newborns have the “pre-heaven” ability to automatically hold their breath and paddle if suddenly immersed in water. I could be wrong. or even learn to ﬁght other hockey players.
.

ended with the Snake Method. I have seen three different such kick methods used even though each has the same name. Of course.” as has sometimes been unfairly said on the Internet. as doing so is a great mental exercise. Erle. when you count the actual methods. co-ordination and agility of this legendary mythical beast. you get 33. It is not always the reptilian monster or servant of the devil. as usually portrayed through the centuries in most Western Christian thought. but should only be taught and practised as individual units. I have seen several of these demonstrated live and on video. There are many different versions of this Original Form. Furthermore. or eight mini-forms. call them “The 32 Fighting Methods” even though. speed. it is a good practice for the student to be taught the ﬁrst side and then teach him or herself the reverse side. a few teachers insist that the ﬁghting methods were never meant to be practised in sequence. combining the bagua he had learned from Cheng Ting Hua with techniques from his former training in Xing Yi Quan and Shaolin Chuan. One of his ﬁrst books. Similarly. As to the Circular Form that he teaches. then it is done in mirror image to create a totally balanced physical exercise. but the forms that he still teaches are much as they were when I ﬁrst saw them in the late 80s. four. 34. variety—the spice of life. and our brains—not just our bodies—need exercise to remain healthy as we age. and some are so different that you would swear they came from completely different sources. or bad in the many myths about it. Dragon Whips Its Tail. has evolved his own training methods over the years. rather than one long sequence. the most reliable modern martial arts historians believe that the late Master Gao created the Linear Forms.
POST-HEAVEN TRAINING: THE LINEAR FORM
Those bagua styles that teach some version of what Erle calls the Linear Form often teach it as either two. The original set. I have seen translations of. or 36. While it is best to learn under supervision. In any case. not 32. Ah.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
51
PRE-BIRTH TRAINING: THE CIRCULAR FORM OF JIANG JUNG CHIAO
This form is sometimes called the Dragon Form and is practised to develop the power. was ﬁrst published in 1984 and he is hardly “jumping on the bagua bandwagon. spicy food often gives people indigestion! As to the types of controversy that can bedevil those researching bagua. called that to differentiate it from the other forms Master Jiang created during his career as a bagua teacher. like many good modern teachers. a couple of older Chinese books. each palm change is separated by walking the circle once (Change #7 is the only exception) using the slip-stepping method. In Chinese myth. and can be portrayed as good.
. the dragon is a symbol of Imperial power as well as of Yang or Yin energy. apparently. neutral. on both taiji and bagua. Erle Montaigue’s version holds up extremely well—especially for the martial usage—when compared to most of what I have seen elsewhere. The kick method. just because bagua is now becoming fashionable in North America. illustrated with line drawings. was a later addition. balance.

from side-to-side as necessary. • To the left and to the right: in simple terms this is related to turning the hips and shoulders. books. you begin to get the kind of physical co-ordination that is the foundation of any internal art. it is much easier to write this or to read it than to understand what is being described on an experiential level. and many modern teachers focus their teaching efforts on the Circular Form and selected ﬁghting methods. another way of talking about the three-dimensional aspect of movement. A simple demonstration by an instructor who can actually do the above is worth 10. Again. from those you can make up an almost unlimited number of techniques that are variations—depending on your skill and the type of attack being used against you. I will append what advice I feel might be helpful from my perspective of having taught this material on an ongoing basis for over a decade. videos and workshops. as well as stepping forward and back. I will not repeat the details of the practice of these forms at a basic level here.52
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I think it is best to approach the Linear Form as being a catalogue of the most useful martial techniques found in the Circular Form. Erle has explained these much better in his classes. • Forward and back: in simple terms this relates to shifting the body weight forward and back. and that there are less than 30 basic types of application. partly because of this mechanism and partly because of the shoulders and elbows. the Linear Form is becoming a rarity in modern times—few schools still teach it. these six directions are: • Up and down: the prime motivation in physical terms for this dimensional pair is the ming-men (small of the back) as well as themuscles of the abdomen. While the arms will move up and down. The Six Directions The six directions are. When you sum it up on paper. Of course. or the waist area alone.
GENERAL TRAINING TIPS FOR EMPTY-HAND FORMS
As I said before. I have also read that the ﬁrst eight methods are the key methods in terms of martial practicality. that deﬁnes any efﬁcient use of body mass and mechanics for qigong and martial purposes. However.000 words that the reader will only understand in his head.
. of course. connecting the minimal use of the arms to this movement is what makes the internal approach different from a more segmented/cruder approach. Due to the length of time that it takes to have even a basic skill in its execution. this space between the hip bones and the ribcage plays a crucial factor in separating internal body mechanics from a more segmented and cruder approach. When you add the use of the waist for side to side movement and the use of ming-men for up and down movement.

What I call the “Swing Step” is occasionally used in the Circular and Linear Forms. This is always used after having “wrapped” the arms.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
Footwork
53
Erle recommends that the Circular Form be practised with the Slip Step. as a way of twisting out of an attempted arm lock to set up a shoulder strike or throw (White Ape Builds a Nest). Various methods are strung together in straight lines and turn periodically after having gone to one or more corners. as in certain postures of the Circular Form. It is possible to develop great speed with this method. It can add a great deal of torque to your pulling action if you have grabbed the opponent’s wrist. Changing Directions You will normally use the inside and outside changes the most in your forms. or as a sudden turn to block and strike. No good style that I am aware of allows you to lift the toes ﬁrst or higher than the heel while moving that foot. narrow Bow Stances and follow-stepping are more commonly used. as well as in partner training that involves walking the circle. and it is very important to feel as if the hands lead in attempting this kind of directional change. and it is ideal on smooth surfaces. It is essential to lift and place the entire foot as a unit. You don’t have to worry about Slip Steps. also known as the Snake or Mud Step. being concerned with practical martial usage. so it is worth focusing a lot of effort to get. This is the hardest of the footwork methods to get right on a consistent basis. This footwork is normally used to develop the ability to do low kicks. While some styles allow you to lift the heel a little higher than the toe. is done in a linear manner. Some bagua teachers state that this stepping method is really only suited to beginners. or to drive your moving foot downwards into your attacker’s knee. The Linear Form. as the Tiger/Natural Step is more useful in terms of adapting to a variety of terrains.
. or foot. What I call the “Screwing Step” is used in the Circular Form. but not the other. and the rear leg kicks forward and pauses before the entire process is repeated so that the feet are pushed forward by the turning of the hips. The front foot slides. or it can be used to suddenly lift an attacker’s foot with your swinging foot to imbalance him. However. This is physically easier. which requires that your weight stays on the rear leg to facilitate speedy footwork and to allow for sudden kicks. shin. targeted at lower shin and ankle height. Most people in my experience will be able to do it reasonably well and consistently walking in one direction. The feet are kept ﬂat on the ground. and it can be very useful for changing direction. other methods are occasionally found in the forms and should become relatively easy with time and effort. moving heel and toe together. and occasionally in the Linear Form. The footwork is easier and more practical in martial terms. This movement is epitomised in the Sixth Change of the Circular Form by the footwork executed in “Sweep Ten Thousand Enemies” and in the Linear Form by the posture Checking Palm to Abdomen.

as well as cause mental tension. it is not a good idea to wiggle or twist excessively when doing fa-jing although this is often the initial natural result of starting to loosen the waist. Martially. Some of the movements are designed to be done in a fa-jing manner. Oh. the amount of force used is easy to overdo. Similarly. and culture. you will likely make your progress slower. They are likely to hyper-extend their elbow joints in their zeal or have the energy they generate rebound or get stuck in their own body if they are still a little stiff while moving through the forms. I would recommend practising each method or change for several weeks—if not months—before moving onto the next posture or change. Fa-jing practice with any intensity should be saved for practising on a mitt. Focusing too much on such martial intention can lead to a rather mechanical approach to the form. In the absence of qualiﬁed instruction you can sometimes discover the spirit of the movements by taking your cue from the names of the postures.
. if you are learning from Erle’s videos almost exclusively. It also helps to train with a partner who is watching the videos as well.54
Visualisations/Attentiveness
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One of the many inherent contradictions in an art like bagua is that you should not routinely practise the forms as if imaginary enemies are coming at you from every direction. If you tense up when speeding up to strike. you cannot really learn the right timing for each posture without at least having a rough idea of what you are doing martially in each case. and practising endlessly with a variety of partners rather than from a mere technical level of solo competency. As these forms are meant to be done quickly. Conversely. wings outstretched as if sunbathing or displaying for a mate. it can very soon get out of hand in the sense that moving quickly is conducive to striking your forearms and the more vulnerable dimmak points a little too hard. but it is also a good practice for beginners to avoid using power and vigour in an attempt to make the movements of the form look and feel more martial and enjoy instead the movements for their own sakes. try to avoid the common tendency to make the postures look and feel more martial. shield. striking the air is problematic for most beginner and intermediate levels practitioners. But such interpretations are easy to get wrong if you don’t already have a strong background in the Chinese martial arts. and you will need someone to practise the applications with. or heavy bag so that there is something to absorb whatever power you are capable of. not faster. Pheasant Throws Its Wings denotes a proud bird whose head is turned over its shoulder. It is easy to get injured if you are striking your own elbow joints instead of the ﬂeshy part of the muscles of the upper forearm. relearning how to stand and move. Particularly. language. Martial function comes from understanding principles. For example.… Expressing Power in the Solo forms Except for the ofﬁcial fast or fa-jing movements. Two sets of eyes and two brains are usually better at sorting out what is happening on the screen and in your practice sessions. Real fa-jing is subtle and comes from the convergence of a number of skills and physical attributes—it is not just being rubbery. and even if your aim is accurate.

it is better to try and do the movements in a relatively slow and mechanical manner. This helps to teach the students learning the form where the martial “chunks” are. Frequency/Intensity of Practice It should go without saying that it is essential to practise the forms regularly. and the head. It is also true that the eyes must be lively. Again. Once you have mastered these. I have seen some beneﬁt to practising this form by stopping at the end of each individual ﬁghting method while going quickly and smoothly through each method.
. especially if you are only working from videos or have infrequent access to a good bagua instructor. practise with smoothness and ﬂuidity in mind. You should lead the spins and major directional changes with the mind. and it is possible to try to do the movements too slowly. and to get them ready to practise interactively with each other. sometimes obliquely to the circle itself. Similarly. I think that it is very important to take your time learning this form. if you want to see progress! However. There are subtle and less subtle pauses at the end of each martial set. It is not just a question of moving around a circle—sometimes you are working to the centre. In the beginning. but never as slowly as the Yang Style Slow Form. Walk slowly and evenly between the changes in the Circular Form. It has also been my experience over the years that intermediate level students tend to have trouble with the idea of paying attention to what they are doing once they have learned the forms physically well enough so that they can practise more or less automatically. You can use more speed while moving though the postures that make up each change. This implies that you have to know where you are going in a visual sense. if not years. both eyes. the pace of the Linear Form is variable in the sense that it can be done very quickly or relatively slowly. Pacing It can take many months. it is better to focus your full attention on that one repetition rather than to do them several times in a row while daydreaming.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
Using the eyes
55
Be aware that the eyes always follow the active hand in solo practice. then it can be assumed that the form is being approached with some quality in mind and in a traditional manner. Being attentive both visually and mentally is essential. it is useful advice to remember to practise relatively slowly. preferably every day. or just going through the motions. Many of the spinning or turning postures will be easier if you use a little speed while trying to learn how to use them. It is worth repeating that part of what makes bagua an internal system is the attention that must be paid to being attentive in one’s practice. remember that the postures within each change don’t ﬂow one into the other. to ingrain the proper basic body mechanics of walking and the details of the postures within the forms themselves. If the performer has presence and is attentive of what he or she is doing when practising a form. However. although this is not Yang Style Slow Form practice.

the Three Internal Harmonies are about having a clear purpose in each aspect of your practice and of being truly attentive. in turn. Doing a form competently should always feel and look to an observer like you are doing it well for the ﬁrst time or the last. those who choose to compete tend to argue that physical prowess and ﬂexibility are at least as important as anything else. and. Many of us don’t live in an area where the weather permits year-round outdoor practice.… Space Considerations One of the curses of many of the traditional forms for modern practitioners is the amount of clear space needed to practise—your living room usually won’t do. and the shoulders with the hips. The Three External Harmonies are the co-ordinated expression of the Yi in that the hands are co-ordinating with the feet. Who is correct? I don’t think that there is a simple answer. and that relaxation. spiritual. you are co-ordinating the internal with the external. Finally. and kicking preclude practising on snowy/muddy/icy surfaces. The circle walking and circular forms are marginally more economical of space than the linear and weapons forms. and this is the key aim in any internal training.
. the Yi harmonising with the Qi (internal energy) which transmits that intent. while quality of attentiveness goes out the door. Aesthetics vs Function I have often been told and read that “real” martial artists think that training to make their forms and postures look aesthetically appealing is a waste of time that could be better spent doing more conditioning exercises or practising combative methods. Conversely. In other words. To put it more simply. competitive) is in your training. which then harmonises with the Li (power/the actual physical expression of the posture). also called the Three Co-ordinations. If this happens. lifting knees. Possession of this quality has two complimentary aspects: the Internal Harmonies refer to the Xin (heart/desire for action) being in accord with the Yi (intent/the will to act). especially when moving quickly. Quality over quantity. These are important considerations for modern students. sensitivity and a calm mind are ultimately more important than strength and athletic ability. the movement of your body and spirit will be attractive from a visual perspective to the casual and the trained observer because you will be harmonious. It is a waste of time to start learning forms that you can never practise properly for lack of space to do so. There are no easy answers to this dilemma. so to speak. the elbows with the knees. you will have a constant expression of the Three Harmonies. graceful.56
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Daydreaming or not paying attention tends to settle into their daily practice. in your movement and postures when doing any internal art. and an investigation of this issue should start with the concept of expressing the Three Harmonies. Perhaps. no matter what the main focus (combative. The experts would argue that if you have been taught well and are trying to practise well. if you pay attention to each movement and posture of the forms or techniques you are practising. this is an attitude to hold onto to help you focus on your daily training to make it really worthwhile. those who prefer the more genteel approach tend to argue that the movements should be beautiful.

as it lessens the chance of overworking and stressing one side of the body. and others. the types of physical skills necessary to do Chinese Opera or compete in a kung-fu/taiji tournament in forms are the foundation of combative training (i. There is also the issue of symmetry that relates both to the beauty and martial function. These inspirational demonstrations of the Three Harmonies in action have periodically reminded me of why I am still doing this marvellous nonsense after so many years of training and teaching.. cannot learn to be equally ambidextrous. healthy. Any posture/method from bagua will work against a variety of attacks on the open and the closed sides—if you understand it well enough. And even the simplest and harshest combative action can be done so well so that it appears magically easy.
. Tim Cartmell. To compound the issue. this is a difﬁcult concept to get as common sense might argue that theatrical gymnastics and expansive movements are better suited to competition routines than ﬁghting. can appreciate the inherent quality of movement and presence when a master does form the way it should always look (and so rarely does). but the application itself will suffer. Bagua normally takes the approach that it is essential to practise the forms in a symmetrical manner. as each of us can strive to demonstrate. not only does the posture look wrong to the practised observer if there is not such symmetry. whether beginner or expert. Anyone. and you may.THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS
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Strangely enough. I was telling a colleague of mine recently that the highlights of my three decades of martial arts training have been seeing the occasional example of outstanding skills done by masters like Erle Montaigue. Sam Masich. that same expression of the Three Harmonies in our own daily practice. I know. to focus on using your dominate side. as to martial function. However. there is no need for us to feel inferior because we cannot necessarily reach such heights. each change in the Circular Form and every ﬁghting method will be practised on both sides of the body. this is also the foundation for effective ﬁghting as you can’t defend yourself against a committed and skilful attacker unless your body is balanced. Strangely enough. and vice versa. and it seems like a waste of time to try to do so. Symmetry also implies that quite often both hands and arms will ﬁnish holding the same posture even though only one was being used actively at the end of the application. have to be male to appreciate the beauty in combat between skilled opponents. So. each according to his or her ability and interest. It only means that you focus on the whole body usage that makes the most of your strong side. it is important to remember that such skill does not come automatically just because you can express the Three Harmonies through your solo practice! You cannot learn interactive ﬁghting/pushing skills without practising such methods with a variety of partners under competent supervision. especially in terms of making the most of your practice sessions. as well as motivated by a uniﬁed spirit and intent. smooth. with few exceptions. And real combative skills have to be harsh and simple to be effective. it makes more sense. perhaps. Don’t take my word for it—experiment for yourself. Of course. However. you have to be strong. It is also true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. and co-ordinated to defend yourself).e. and harmonious. Human beings. this does not mean that you ignore your left side if you are righthanded. However.

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CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
It has been my experience that the Circular Form can take almost a year for the average beginner to learn if he or she attends class twice a week. The Linear Form is even more tedious to learn. and applications. forms. But mastery of any traditional internal art is a life long journey. as well as those who compete in mixed martial arts ﬁghting events. when approached properly. practising. And there is a lot of truth to this. tend to look down their battered noses at the value of solo forms and deride them as being a waste of time that could be better spent on sparring and conditioning. as taught by Erle. especially if you consider how low many modern bagua teachers have drifted in terms of their potential martial effectiveness anywhere except with their own students in a classroom setting. and teaching your vocabulary of techniques in the long run. It has so many methods. However. and that you don’t neglect the other aspects of your training. The three points of the bagua triangle should be: qigong. Just be careful that your forms don’t become meaningless dances.
. not a quick trip to McDonalds! Many modern sport martial artists. each must be practised on both sides when doing the form as one long set. solo forms are the martial “short hand” of bagua practitioners and provide a way of remembering.

The most direct is to attack the aggressor’s arms or legs as he advances to attack you.” In fact. you will normally begin training the martial methods. Of course. in many ways. and it always does in self-defence. where your partner isn’t really following you with the intent to harm you for real. Doing so will only work in a classroom setting. In fact. the other bagua approach is to move out of the line of attack to avoid resisting the incoming mass and resultant power and deﬂect it off-course while counter-attacking. This does not mean getting out of the way. By then. the study of mathematics and physics. this method works best if you have considerable skill and are not much smaller than the person attacking you. Many people. you will probably have realised that any aspect of bagua is harder if competently done than it would ﬁrst appear to the uninitiated. but it is less essential than having the three aspects of what I call “The Bagua Triangle. train hard while paying attention to the quality of that practice—not just how many hours you put into one session. I will tease you a little by hinting here that understanding triangulation is also the secret of understanding the famous circularity of bagua whose study is. Getting out of the way in a bagua-like manner implies that you are connected to the opponent with at least one of your forearms or palms and have not moved needlessly out of
. will ﬁnd it painful and disorienting to have their limbs struck. I will tell you the secrets of any aspect of traditional bagua at no extra charge: have good instruction. When size matters. read Sun Tzu’s Art of War) is to surprise the enemy and do the unexpected.
WHAT MAKES BAGUA DIFFERENT IN MARTIAL TERMS
As I said in an earlier chapter.Chapter Four
Fundamentals: Basic Martial Training
Once you have been practising the qigong and studying the solo forms for some time. one of the key tactics (don’t take my word for it. be patient. bagua has some rather interesting approaches to combat. In combat. Having aptitude is certainly an asset. even those with ﬁghting experience.

the bigger and stronger ﬁghter usually wins. The bagua style we follow favours open hand techniques. if you are behind or outside your opponent’s arms. This is why when two people ﬁght. It is also important to remember that bagua is an art that uses the open hand in preference to the ﬁst—particularly when attacking the head. or those using the heel of the hand. or has some practical skills himself. stronger and technically sound. It is also important to remember the difference between working on the open and the closed sides of an opponent. These are the most common injuries faced by Western boxers despite having taped their hands and wearing gloves. If you are technically far superior to your opponent. You didn’t really believe that walking the circle meant that you would circle the opponent like the Indians. which are very strong and bony joints. Getting back to the original idea of having two major approaches to dealing with an attack. Finally. Ideally. and sometimes you have no choice. not to the sides or directly forward. you can most likely put him down despite a signiﬁcant size or weight difference. you will learn to do both types of tactics in your training sessions even though a much smaller person would be best to use only the avoidance method when dealing with a larger attacker.60
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range. but each of the two forms contains one closed ﬁst technique to remind us that this weapon can be useful under certain situations and cannot be ignored completely. his greater reach and greater mass in motion make it unlikely that you will prevail. riding around the wagon train that had pulled into a defensive circle in bad Western movies? Circle stepping in any context teaches you about getting out of the way properly. and you will end up connecting with his skull with a real danger of breaking your ﬁngers or wrist. palm strikes. In addition. as well as the option to escape if need be. it will often be very difﬁcult to do.
. become preferable for these reasons. the open hand can be used to grasp vital points or lock up the key joints of the limbs. Stepping diagonally backwards is a second-class option that only works under certain situations. moving forward diagonally is what makes you look as if you have circled around your opponent to be in the position of advantage behind him or her. and that having superior skills may be the only way you can win the encounter. the opposite does not hold true. Done smoothly and competently. you have superior positional advantage to take the opponent down without much struggle. When ﬁghting on the inside. In order to end a ﬁght you need to dominate the opponent. But. The other common problem is landing your closed ﬁst on an opponent’s elbows if he covers his ribs effectively with elbows. With considerable time and practice. You have access and opportunity to attack his vulnerable areas. he has much less access to yours. If your opponent is bigger and stronger. If you’re not more skilled than the larger or heavier opponent. By the way. your opponent has just as much access and opportunity to attack your vulnerable areas as you have to attack his. you should always assume that your hypothetical opponent is dangerous. not about walking around in circles. It also means that you move diagonally forward. Erle teaches three main versions of the palm strike for slightly different martial purposes. The rationale is that all your opponent has to do against a closed ﬁst attack is duck a few inches.

then you should do them in the order shown. He suggested. I have tried to live by some very good advice I received from one of my former taiji instructors. that I focus on being a ﬁrst-rate Michael Babin rather than a second-rate Erle Montaigue. Don’t blame him if you disagree with what you read.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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The funny footwork used in the Slip Step is also a way of training the martial use of your own feet and shins as offensive and defensive tools. although none come from Erle Montaigue. I make no apologies for being vague or incomplete in my advice on these various methods. Consequently. or martial principles. to trap an attacker’s legs and balance whenever possible while in close range. These exercises are designed to strengthen and loosen the body and teach particular body mechanics. form work.
THE BASIC MARTIAL CURRICULUM
Developing some competency in the following training methods is essential if you hope to begin understanding bagua as a martial art. it is smart to do a little cooling down with a few of these exercises or whatever stretches you may prefer. If you have been doing standing qigong ﬁrst. as I continued to train and develop my understanding of taiji and bagua. I have tried my best to remain true to Erle’s instruction while blending in methods from other instructors that seemed useful. it will be hard to gain more than a superﬁcial understanding of the following text. stepping on their feet or striking the vulnerable areas of the inside and outside of their knees while doing toe-out steps. reﬂect both my own aptitudes and inadequacies. it will be more difﬁcult for the aggressor to continue their attack effectively. Similarly. without doubt. Alan Weiss. the guidance of competent one-on-one instruction. One of the hallmarks of bagua is the way in which a practitioner uses his or her feet while doing toe-in steps. starting with Holding Up the Heavens and ﬁnishing with Shaking the Body. In this context. with hands doing the necessary martial work. I have picked them up from a variety of sources (workshops and videos). then I would recommend that you start with Shaking the Body and then follow the order shown below. when you have ﬁnished such training. Some of them also introduce speciﬁc jings. If you are using these exercises as a way of preparing for qigong. The text on each is designed to supplement. If you are crowding an attacker without tensing up or losing your balance. Before beginning any martial training it is a good idea to get the torso and limbs warmed up. or martial training. Basic Warm-up Methods The following exercises are all used in traditional bagua styles. my interpretation of the forms and methods that do come from Erle. and not replace. The same applies if you are kicking their shins. If you are reading this and have never had my guidance or that of a competent bagua instructor. whether he or she is in the WTBA or not. but don’t think
. Consequently. or what I have taught you! The forms and methods are listed in the order you would normally learn from me.

Push them up until your arms are straight. Don’t bend and straighten your elbows once you are “holding onto the grindstone. and straighten up as you shift the weight back. but not locked. Pressure is taken off the heart and lungs by opening the chest cavity. exhale as you go forward. The internal organs are also gently massaged by the rhythmic breathing. let the body turn to the left. in front of the waist and raise the hands slowly until the palms turn to face upwards when the backs of the hands are directly above the top of the head. Repeat to the right side. letting the stomach muscles gently contract inward as you turn back to face forward. They are ways of starting to understand bagua principles that apply to both self-healing and the combat methods. Please ensure that you don’t accidentally hold your breath for extended periods. The chest is expanded. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side. and vice versa. you are probably going too fast. Relax. Don’t lean too far forward when in the Bow Stance. and that your hips do not move. Exercise One: Holding Up the Heavens/Strengthens the Spine and Arms. Try not to lean to the side. Remember to keep the hips from turning.” The idea is to use the co-ordinated movement of your waist and spine to move your arms in the required pattern. with the left hand underneath and the right hand above. Step to the side with the left foot into a moderate Horse Stance and position your arms as if you were holding a beach ball in front of the torso. Exhale while rolling and wrapping the left
. Circle the hands in a counter-clockwise fashion while shifting the weight forward and back. As you do this. Inhale as you come back. Don’t do these exercises too slowly or too quickly. inhale while letting the stomach muscles gently contract inward and upwards. but with the hands “grinding” in a clockwise fashion. Repeat on the right. and as you do so. Keep lengthening up. palms up. let your hands drop slowly to the sides while maintaining feeling of extension to your ﬁngertips. Exercise Three: Bending the Heavenly Stem/Stretches and Strengthens the Lower Back and Legs. interlace the ﬁngers. With the arms lengthening up over the head. And even at a moderate speed. doing too many repetitions. arms as well. as your hands “hold the grindstone” (as if your hands are cupping a stone shaped like a bowl held upside down) at waist height. Be sure that you have the feeling of lengthening up. shoulders and sides of the torso. and then retract the left foot and hands to the starting spot. or holding the breath. Also be sure that you do not collapse or slump as you exhale. This gently twists the spine and helps to increase or maintain the elasticity of the spine. Lack of oxygen leads to muscle tension. Do four or eight repetitions. Exhale slowly. With your knees straight. pushing your interlocked hands straight up over your head. If you ﬁnd that you get breathless doing any of these.62
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of these as being techniques. as you do so. Gently exhale and relax the stomach muscles and. Always begin with the quiet standing posture before stepping out to the left side with the left foot. Step diagonally to the left. which tones the abdominal walls. you won’t normally try to co-ordinate your breathing with your actions on a conscious level unless speciﬁcally told to in certain exercises. Reverse that to return to the quiet standing posture. Do four or eight repetitions of each exercise on each side. always lengthening up. Inhale. Exercise Two: Rotating the Grindstone/Co-ordinating Posture and the Bow Stance. a natural abdominal lift is created.

way to practise. switching the hands again. and then down to the front before coming back to stop momentarily by the left hip. I have seen old photos of masters walking the circle while holding and twirling stone balls of impressive sizes. This teaches you to do a Changing Step.) The other way to make your training more challenging is to hold round objects of varying sizes and weights while practising. the advanced version of this dictates that you never let one hand rest by the hip while the other moves—both will be constantly moving until you have done an equal number of repetitions on each side. the rear hand should feel as if it is holding an opponent’s wrist that you caught after having intercepted a punch with your initial chop. as you ﬁrst chop with the edge of one hand before “wrapping” the arms and ﬁnishing with a second chop with the other hand.
. lean forward so that your torso forms a 90 degree angle with your legs. assume as wide a Horse Stance as possible. turning smoothly on the heels (don’t let the toes lift too high as you do this). For example. Keep the chin tucked in at all times. Push the Palms. “Don’t spill your tea” while doing this.) As you straighten up.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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hand overhead. I have used croquet balls and Bocce balls as improvised bagua spheres. Your lower back drops. and only the waist and arms will move. Exercise Four: Wrap & Chop/Trains Co-ordination Between the Upper and Lower Body. Start on the left side and imagine that you extend your left palm—don’t drop your invisible cup of tea cradled in the palm of that hand—by twisting the wrist so that the ﬁngers go to the left side. This method uses the posture recommended for the advanced standing qigong method I described earlier.B. (N. Stepping to the side with the left foot. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side. The heavier the object. this necessitates that you lift and retract the left foot as you retract the left arm. and challenging. and then extend the right arm and leg. and the knees and legs do most of the actual work. and to inhale whenever you are straightening. Place the left heel back next to the right heel. but instead of holding each side for a certain number of breaths you retract and extend each side alternating from left to right. but be careful that you don’t overdo this. At the end of each swivel. Remember to exhale as you bend forward or back. appearing to lean back as far as possible as the right hand drops simultaneously. Your right palm will be pushing forward. So. which is a very valuable way of mobilising the momentum of your body weight when you don’t have enough room to step more normally. It is important to remember that your torso and arms will have to move faster than your waist and legs if you are to accomplish two chops on each swivel. Allow your head to turn with the torso. Exercise Five: Twisting the Tea Cups/Trains ﬂexibility in the Arms and Shoulders. This method is done in a moderate Horse Stance (ma-bu).B. and then forward and upwards over the head. Exercise Six: Changing the Guard/Trains the use of the Changing Step as well as how to use the Palms. but remember that your eyes and attention must stay to the front where the opponent would be standing if you were doing this as martial technique. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side. (N. the inguinal folds crease. inhale and then. the better the training in terms of building strength and ﬂexibility. elbows and wrists. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side. Your front hand does the ﬁnal damage—feel with the “hammer” portion of the lower outside edge of the Dragon Palm. this is a traditional. Shift/swivel from side to side. and your spine will be as straight as possible. and you will go a long way to stretching and relaxing your shoulders.

Exercise Seven: Rising and Falling/Strengthens and loosens the hips and buttocks. palms up.
Sad to say that there are still many internal arts teachers who tell their students that you don’t have to sweat. and being able to discuss the I-Ching can compensate for working hard physically. walking in circles any which way. which so many modern instructors seem to worship. Rooting/Grounding Methods (Stationery and Moving) Rooting and sensitivity exercises are essential foundation skills in the martial practice of any internal arts. or hold your breath. This ecercise is relaxing once you get the hang of it. Particularly in terms of traditional Taoist thought. but do not force the mouth to remain closed. You can lean forward slightly as you drop. This method is done while in a moderate Horse Stance and consists of dropping the torso by bending the knees and folding the inguinal area while exhaling. Do this for roughly a minute in a continuous manner. bend both knees slightly and start gently vibrating the body from head to feet. shaking relaxes the muscles and joints in general. as long as the spine is straight. or try to co-ordinate it in any way with the shaking and trembling. or get bruised. I don’t know what is worse: those misguided or fraudulent teachers making money and gratifying their egos by teaching rubbish. or make contact with your training partner to learn how to apply the postures and principles of an internal art.
TWO-PERSON TRAINING METHODS
I shouldn’t have to say this to anyone with any real martial experience.64
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It also teaches you to lift your front foot before retracting it. although they should not become the golden idols. You should feel a mild trembling of the muscles and tissues in all parts of the body. and you don’t incline forwards excessively. and are a little hard of hearing. and to the height of the shoulders. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side. Keep the tip of your tongue pressed lightly upwards on the upper palate. I will shout:
YOU HAVE TO PRACTISE THE INTERACTIVE METHODS WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS TO HAVE ANY HOPE OF LEARNING HOW THEY MIGHT WORK IN A CONFRONTATIONAL SITUATION. Don’t bend your knees excessively and don’t drop so low that your thighs exceed being parallel to the ﬂoor. In the beginning you may need to start this process by bouncing up and down by alternately bending and straightening the knees. Pause for a few moments after completing the previous exercise and. with arms still hanging at the sides. As you inhale you will reverse this process and rise up to your original position. Exercise Eight: Shaking the Body/Relaxes the Body and Stimulates the Hormone-producing Organs. the most important hormons are those produced by the sexual organs. As you do this. as these are used in the production of Qi. but since many modern students don’t fall into that category. so that you could avoid having it trapped by someone else trying to immobilise your leg with a toe-in stance. Most are relatively safe and useful methods of training stu-
. extend your arms forward. It helps to regulate glandular function for the purpose of building helth and preventing sexual dysfuncion. or the many students who swallow rubbish because they would rather believe that wearing spiffy costumes. In addition. Don’t let the latter become violent spams.

having done so is sound strategy. Being sensitive and having an immovable root can be a liability if your partner doesn’t play by the rules (e. by suddenly moving to get behind you. one student assumes and holds what I call the Guard Posture while his or her partner pushes slowly and a bit stifﬂy (at least until the recipient gets the hang of relaxed heaviness) on either a forearm. Isn’t rationalisation wonderful? The exercises that we do are designed to help the student physically understand how important it is to be upright and ﬁrm. The person reacting to that has to stick to their incoming force and deﬂect it off course as he steps diagonally to the corner or swivel on one leg and move the other. your partner pushes properly from the waist and with connectivity to the ground while stepping through your space. and experiment with how much force you give your partner. One arm comes up to help you deﬂect and keep your partner’s hand away from your torso. but try to keep it simple and non-competitive. However. which is harder to lift—20 pounds of iron chain or a similar weight of iron plate? In the moving version of this method. The person being pushed upon should imagine that they are like a child or pet that resists being picked up by going dead weight. Starting this way minimises the chances of accidental contact to the wrong targets. or simply striking) and you are unable to adapt instantly to such cheating.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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dents how to read another person’s body movements through contact. Similarly. When you do something unexpected. In regards to the latter. All the student has to do is stand there without moving with as little physical effort or movement as possible. Remember to push and step at the same time. yet relaxed. and he or she initiates the movement of each method in this little two-person set—save one. or the abdomen. In one stationary version of this exercise.g. it is essential for instructor and students alike to remember that such games create skills that do not. while always having the potential for balanced movement. automatically bring self-defence abilities. so that the leader doesn’t get complacent and forget
. There are a variety of martial applications possible. the other pretends to strike the pusher’s torso or head. They suddenly feel like they weigh twice or three times there actual weight. One person is designated the leader. while creating and maintaining a stable lower centre of gravity in themselves. You should ﬁnd that stepping and pushing stifﬂy makes you fall forward somewhat or lurch if your partner applies the correct pressure and method while swivelling out of the way of your pressure. please remember that the other side succeeds by cheating. That is because their relative relaxation makes it harder for you to ﬁnd the “stiff bits” that can operate as the fulcrum for you to lever them upwards. Try lifting a 30 lb toddler or dog that doesn’t want up. by themselves. They should be positioned just out of punching range for the taller partner. The Conditioning Applications Set Both partners start by standing in a moderate Horse Stance (ma-bu is a foundational stance in most forms of Chinese martial arts) and facing each other with their palms pressing down by their hips. shoulder.

You should connect the wrist/forearm on the same side to your partner’s wrist/forearm. this exercise is a good introduction to learning to take some force with your arms and to not let such impacts affect your mobility or ability to stay functionally relaxed. especially the ability to use horizontal turning and twisting to deﬂect upper body and low foot attacks. Do not this exercise for too long at any one time. In bagua.
Vertical Power Exercise: This two person exercise strengthens the legs. not too late—and to use your body to pull. rather than confronting it. rather than your arm alone. While doing either of the two exercises discussed here. You will discover. Erle doesn’t emphasise this tactical application. vertical power is quite often used to initiate a kick. but it is common in other competent versions of bagua. particularly the hips. and improves co-ordination and balance. After having gone around once. It also teaches how to use the most common stepping and directional change methods and to follow properly—not too soon. and it teaches the student to defend with what I call “grinding power” with the outside of the forearms (primarily Number Four and Number Six palms) while deﬂecting the attack. the other person can take the leadership role. The heels of both lifted legs should be in contact. and I think it is important to be able to do it. It improves co-ordination and balance—particularly the ability to make vertical circles with the hip being the axis of the wheel. on one leg while connecting the outside of the other lifted knee to the outside of his partner’s lifted knee. with both people alternating in the lead role for a preset period of time. Remember to use the waist and hip on the supporting leg to do most of the work. particularly the hips. Although it is not done excessively. In the beginning it can be a bit of a struggle for both people just to stand there connected without one or both losing their balance. You can lead either with the hand or the hooking leg—but do not let the action become simultaneous.
. As with any basic exercise. Joining Legs: Each person will stand in front and a little to one side of his partner. and the exercise can continue this way indeﬁnitely. you should switch supporting legs whenever one person falls over or loses the contest.66
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that there are always exceptions to every rule. This is my variation of a common training method for beginners in other styles. It is important to lean forward and back without compromising your ability to move or remain in a state of equilibrium. Horizontal Power Exercise: Like the ﬁrst. The goal is for the other person to play “follow the leader” and counter whatever technique or footwork is used against him with the same method. it is very difﬁcult to use the right timing to counter at the correct moment even when you know what the other person will be doing. Remember to take turns leading. as opposed to learning how to deﬂect or counter by striking when this is appropriate. this exercise strengthens the legs. it is easy to let yourself accelerate and to use too much brute strength. or to evade a head strike from the opponent’s hand. even when leaning at weird angles.

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There are also ways of practising this where you practise kicking attacks and defences. but that is more suited to advanced students and resembles in some ways the “sticky legs” exercises used in some Chen Styles and in some Wing-Chun variations. against a variety of common grabs. To do this. or sweep you to the ground). usually with very little modiﬁcation. Be careful that you don’t use brute force—either as the dummy or the person practising the method. In the beginning it is okay to hold each other’s wrists to help maintain balance. as on the street this would normally be an unconscious and unintended warning signal that the grabber is about to hit you with the other hand. shins (the pain is distracting). and to use the right method for the appropriate grab. Try to get used to doing the correct follow-up for each method. the student needs some stiffness in the grab to be able to make it work relatively easily. however. or result in knockout. or at the knees (a shattered joint makes it hard to continue a ﬁght. you will ﬁnd that each method can be used. Use this to your advantage. that it becomes a natural reaction to start countering whatever is being done to you. not just those you are accustomed to. Remember to stretch the Dragon Palms when your partner starts to squeeze/grab your arm. In the beginning. but nerve damage or hair-line fractures in the leg bones are not!
. Try to learn to turn such skills off and on. Also be careful when in the dummy role that you don’t remain too relaxed. as you develop some skill. You will probably ﬁnd. Being sensitive to subtle physical cues is an essential aspect of any internal art. Switch turns and partners frequently. The Eight Wrist Releases This is basic training on using the Eight Mother Palms to defend against a passive grab by your partner. A certain amount of toughening is good. Remember to swivel on the ball of the supporting foot in order to gain short-range power for some of the kicks. or a locked-out knee makes it liable that you be thrown or imbalanced). as you don’t do the less experienced student any favours by making it harder than necessary for him or her to explore each of the eight basic wrist releases. With competence and long term training. so that one person’s shins are not prematurely bruised or hurt excessively. A couple of the methods that I teach are slightly different from those taught by Erle if you refer to his videos or books. The Eight Kicking Methods You must learn a variety of coping methods for dealing with the possibility of low kicks aimed at the feet (the pain can be distracting. It is wise for the “attacker” to wear good quality shin pads even if you have reasonably good control of how hard you strike. At the highest levels you attack when kicked or move the target leg out of harm’s way. That’s what this little four-method exercise is for. you should also practise a variety of ways of kicking the attacking leg. especially if you have learned elsewhere to grip strongly despite being relaxed. your attention must be focussed on “listening” at the point of contact.

if two-person sets become a choreography. • Train slowly at ﬁrst with light touch contact. it is good to have developed the ability to use controlled contact. unlike a solo form. you must. most modern students seem to need the structure to make progress even though most have trouble transcending it. I have mixed feelings about sparring or applications sets. do many of the speciﬁc techniques incorrectly for your partner’s safety. it is also true that ﬂowing from one technique to the other requires that neither partner ever ﬁnishes a technique. you may never actually get a feel for how each method could work if it wasn’t countered skilfully. then the martial lessons to be learned tend to be superﬁcial. In relation to this caveat. act as a martial bridge for many students to bring them to the edge of spontaneity in a martial sense. unless both participants are of equal size and skill—incorrectly in the sense of not going too fast or using explosive energy. Two-person sets. it may be many months before you can use more speed and power safely. as is often the case.
. Pay attention to the following points when practising Hammer Hands: • In keeping with the often encountered tradition in the Chinese internal arts. even in friendly training. this form is not learned solo ﬁrst and then practised with a partner—you can only do it with an instructor or a peer. I have always found it interesting in my own students that those who take most naturally to free sparring of any kind usually have the least patience or aptitude for structured two-person exercises. When accidents such as those just mentioned happen. Conversely. competent examples can provide a real challenge to the intermediate level student as. in some ways. It is an indication of your level of development as to how well you remember the part of the form you know from class to class. In fact. and learning applications on a body level instead of as an intellectual abstraction. whether simple or complex. If you don’t have competent instruction. However. You are unlikely to encounter them in the present day. whose hands certainly can feel like hammers when he uses them against you. but work best against attacking methods common in the China of a century ago. This means that you must have basic skills at the solo and interactive methods to be able to retain any of it between practice sessions. forgetting the next move might mean that you get hit in the nose by accident. Others are simple in design. maintaining the concept of sustained effort for technique after technique without becoming breathless or stiffening your movements. Some that I have seen in other styles of bagua are ridiculous in the complexity of their movement or require a level of co-operation from your partner that would merit an Academy Award for acting. It is also easy for such sets to become an overly choreographed ritual which brings a false sense of security as to your self-defence ability.68
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HAMMER HANDS APPLICATIONS SET
This training method is a bit more complex than the Conditioning Set and I have named it Hammer Hands in honour of Erle. On the other hand.

and practise them on your own and with a partner. as you can give them whiplash (in martial sense) if he is stiff. rather than running away from it. or conditioned reﬂex—call it what you like). no doubt. even if it is only a mental understanding.
FORM APPLICATIONS
I have mentioned how important it was to develop some concept of what each posture means on a martial level. but be very careful when training with a partner. • Whenever your feet are together. • Most of what seem to be pulling movements are really negative strikes. you should look double-weighted but not be that way. Such interaction. each will also have countless variations depending on the skills and strengths of the practitioner. how to get them there using bagua principles. as opposed to learning many applications on a superﬁcial level. If you can eventually make them work while being attacked with some speed and power then you’re on the right track. you will have to isolate and practise individual techniques many times with a variety of training partners. However. Use care when doing them. I believe that each posture has one or more interpretations as a defence against either being struck or grabbed. and how to relax under pressure.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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• Many of the better defensive methods will only work easily when you learn to move away from the incoming force only as much as necessary. In the long run. as well as the angle and complexity of attack. so that he or she doesn’t know for sure which direction your next step will be. The combative idea is to try and deceive your opponent. complicates and changes your feel for the mechanics of each posture. if you don’t have to worry about harming your partner. and at a variety of intensities as your understanding and skills develop. even when done slowly and carefully. Now you really begin to learn where your hands and feet should be at any one time. This small arsenal can eventually become internal (or instinctive. or subconscious. Remember that there is really no one interpretation of each method (although some experts would. any martial skill you develop will result from internalising the principles and a few techniques. • Most of the interactions can easily be divided into a defensive part and a counteroffensive part—but remember that the majority are really one action when done well or explosively. One way to do this is to select a few postures from the solo form(s) that you do particularly well or like the most. argue with this).
. even though your sparring partner should! • Most of what seem to be blocks are meant to be striking deﬂections aimed at vital points of the anatomy—use care when doing them. Try to pick methods that cover attacks from the most common angles and from both the right and left sides. to learn any on a meaningful martial level. however.

a heavy bag. this causes great movement in the heavy bag and makes a dull noise on impact. As with any aspect of learning to apply your martial skills in a potentially effective manner from a self-defence point of view. When done on a focus mitt. When done properly. I recommend the videos if you are interested in training how to strike. you cannot ignore the necessity of learning how to do
. as well as a subtle shifting of weight. percussive and penetrating. • The second. or a training partner wearing body armour so that he or she can be safely struck. it is impossible. padded or otherwise. There was also a supposedly advanced way of practising. As with all such training methods. and makes the bag shudder in a different way than the second method. and must do so largely on your own. Still. the methods he teaches for use on this apparatus can be adapted for use on a wing-chun wooden man. or with little or no contact on a training partner. sharper popping sound on impact. Erle also teaches and has videos on the use of what he calls the “bagua wooden man. or on a heavy pole that had been sunk into the earth for that purpose. to learn how to efﬁciently and safely strike with the open hands. and the third is the hardest to generate. • The third method begins like the second. A traditional way of practising striking was to practise on a tree trunk. a padded shield. All three methods are worthwhile from a martial perspective. Unfortunately. you are getting somewhere when the impact of the last two seems to penetrate the padding even though you are not winding up from a great distance to generate momentum. or practising individual methods by yourself. with the ﬁngers and edges of the hand forming a hollow in the palm. It has a distinctive sound as well. or makiwara. as doing it successfully implies that you are able to do the second method well in the ﬁrst place.70
Learning How to Strike with the Palms
CHAPTER FOUR
One of the problems with learning the basic martial usage of the various palm shapes is the natural tendency to conﬁne your practising to “striking the air” while doing forms. in which the bagua student navigated around and through a pattern of such posts (often called Nine Palace Training) while practising a prearranged or spontaneous pattern of strikes on the hard resilience of the posts. and makes a louder. you will know. not just difﬁcult. is driven more with the use of the waist.” although making the requisite shape for his wooden man would not be easy unless you are a skilled woodworker. In fact all of these also create a natural progression in learning how to use greater and greater amounts of power in your palm strikes while also maintaining the integrity of the various methods themselves. • The ﬁrst is a strike with the heel of the palm driven with the weight of the body. and the heavy bag tends to shudder rather than swing. It is useful to think of palm strikes as falling into three categories: blunt impact. it is best to learn and practise them under the supervision of someone who can actually do them with some skill and grace. if you don’t practise making contact with a target of some kind— whether that target is a focus mitt. but then the palm thrusts forward once the edge of the hand and ﬁngers make contact. or done while circling a heavy bag.

ultimately depends on how well you can reposition your body in relation to the opponent just before striking them. but if you can’t get within the correct range to do so without being blown out of the water by the other fellow. Joining Arms This can be the most basic way of learning to apply bagua type martial methods. Using this stance limits how much you can cheat by using your leg muscles to compensate for a lack of use of the waist and hips to control the knees. It is also useful to have one partner do all of the attacking while the other can only redirect the incoming force and not counter-attack. or lure the other person into being obliged to move their feet without the “doer” moving their feet. This use of timing and distancing is very difﬁcult to learn. and weight until some real yielding and redirecting skills are formed. it is good practice to try to use the stick as a lever in locking out your partner’s arms if you can do this safely.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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your strikes on a target that resists—in some way—the impact. and tends to take the longest to learn unless you are born with considerable aptitude for such martial attributes. how hard and how well you can hit. each person is double-weighted). The idea is not to force the person to move. but to guide them into such a position that they would move their feet or topple over. you may be able to strike like a battering ram or with the force of a whip. Let me put it simply. Uprooting Exercises This exercise begins with two partners facing each other at arm’s length while standing in a moderate Horse Stance (feet shoulder width apart and. I think of the
. except passively. It is also useful to practise uprooting while using a short stick. both partners must have considerable skill to avoid injuring each other while still practising in a meaningful manner. Rattan escrima batons make good sticks for this exercise. In other words. it can take some pain and bruising to learn how to strike with an open hand without bruising your own bones or straining your wrists and elbows—even when doing it on a target that doesn’t ﬁght back. As long as you move relatively slowly. Ideally. striking properly is one factor among many that have to be trained and fall into place before you can be as effective a martial artist as your potential allows. Practising this way. They are the correct length and light enough so that you don’t have to worry as much about accidental contact. both partners should be of the same sex. pull. in the beginning. the idea is to get possession of the stick while ideally making the other person lose their balance and move his or her feet at the same time. Then they can switch roles for an equal amount of time. height. then your palm striking ability won’t do you much good. The idea is to push. however. From a mechanical point of view alone. or for failing to shift from side to side properly to help your upper body efforts. Practising with a stick is a quick way to learn how counterproductive it can be to not be able to switch grips quickly and smoothly. Uprooting should be approached as a game in which you try to help each other to fall over or move the feet. as well as ultimately the most advanced method. It is also important to remember.

this is the best. Finally. eventually you can also use kicks to attack and defend. heavy people can learn to use their mass even more effectively. In this regard. such training should give you a ﬁghting chance and. In the beginning. either person can attack at will.72
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Conditioning Set and Hammer Hands as being two initial rungs up the ladder to understand circling your partner while joining arms. etc. you only use inside and outside changes. In solo practice. as his advice is pertinent to this chapter and to the next: “The ultimate bagua. and not get too close unless you are doing so. In Joining Arms practice (sometimes called rou-shu. as opposed to staying a safe distance away on the circumference. Let the leg move with the impact if you are struck. or “soft hands. no martial training can guarantee that you will be able to successfully defend yourself against any aggressor. go with it. In the beginning. baguazhang is an insurance policy that also pays the dividends of physical and emotional good health. Don’t resist the impact. few of us will ever have to use our martial skills for anything more demanding than friendly practice. it is important to practise with a variety of partners: tall people can learn to use the reach of their long arms even more effectively.
CONCLUSION
As with all training. redirecting and turning it back against the opponent who originated the force. Remember that you must never strike offensively or defensively with the wrists as you will only injure yourself or your partner). it involves matching the ﬁne variations of pressures of the opponent with near-imperceptible neutralisation and redirection. It involves reﬁned
. However. slim people can learn to use their ﬂexibility to even greater effect. Eventually. properly taught and practised. though riskiest. If there is one secret to doing this exercise.” or Bagua Push Hands). to end up on the other side. which literally takes you through your partner’s attack into and through the centre of the circle. some styles use this as their primary or alternative means of changing direction while walking the circle. but it is is difﬁcult to subdue him with subtlety. In other words—timing and distance appreciation.B. it is to keep moving and to attack when it is time to attack. you will cross the circle to attack/defend. involves employing subtle pressures and leverages to subdue an opponent. In addition. use care when striking the vulnerable parts of the legs to defend. take turns so that one person always has the attacking role for a prearranged amount of time. What is meant by subtlety? It is the art of using the slightest touch. It is far easier to to use obvious or brute force to beat an opponent. like any internal martial art. I would like to quote from John Bracy’s excellent book on bagua. subtlety can be mastered by only the most dedicated and persistent students of the art. short people can learn to use a low centre of gravity to get inside a taller person’s reach. Doing this means using what I call the Moving Through Step. Sometimes neutralising. way of attacking the other person. Whatever footwork method you use. sometimes leading aside. Fortunately. as this minimises the chance of injury to anything except the wrists and forearms (N. Eventually. However.

staying calm under pressure and direction the situation by the power of one’s will.… This is the superior man’s way to know and ultimately defeat an opponent.BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING
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skills of becoming sensitive.”
. Thus the higher level requires study of the mind and the nervous system.

you train under his supervision until you can copy what he has taught and demonstrated easily. being able to defend yourself against a skilful and aggressive opponent—whether or not he has a size advantage—is a different matter. Beware of teachers who say or imply that their bagua style has the secrets of combat that can be learned in a few easy lessons.Chapter Five
Beyond the Martial Basics
Let’s assume that you have become a somewhat seasoned practitioner. and then spend further years perfecting the various skills and attributes with a variety of partners and on your own. another secret lies in ﬁnding a teacher these days who can really apply any or all of the traditional training methods in anything like a realistic combative manner. if there are any simple steps to developing this potential to defend yourself in a bagua-like manner. We will call the ﬁnal product maturity. However. And. It also follows that. we are likely to get the most from our training on all levels if we stay true to the roots of the discipline. and in your brain as you try to understand the theoretical underpinnings of bagua as a combative system. I don’t want to sound pessimistic. but the longer I train the more I realise that it is very difﬁcult to train safely and easily in a manner that can bring effective self-defence skills. in your heart as the courage and will to persevere in your efforts. Of course. And. in which case you might be able to use your bagua skills in class against one of your peers or against an unskilled attacker on the street. it is also important to remember that bagua started out as an effective combative art—and not as qigong for health. Such secrets are to be found on your body as beads of sweat. The secret to really learning to apply your bagua in a self-defence situation lies in incorporating some hard to ﬁnd traditional training methods in your practice. while you can certainly enjoy and beneﬁt from your training on many levels without being able to defend yourself against such an opponent. having found this role model. In other words. they lie in mastering the following aspects of your training and
. All this can lead to an eventual understanding that comes as much from years of experience as it does from intellectual knowledge or solo form practice.

women and men both tend to resist really letting go of their fear of being noisy in a group setting. Like any other aspect of your training. Using a vocalisation to increase your striking power is nothing new either—ask professional tennis players. the diaphragm goes down and causes the lower abdomen to swell during inhalation. eventually the letting go process will include being able to HA from the very centre of the tan-tien. the resulting sound should be relatively quiet. and triggers an explosive expiration while the abdominal area expands suddenly. to lead the hands to the target. the HA sound escapes through your mouth and is sharp. in turn. The use of breathing to increase your focus is nothing new—ask any weight lifter. The difference it makes to the speed and power of your movement can be quite spectacular. but eventually the sounds can be as effective without being loud (or even audible) unless you choose to use volume
. the voice. sudden. When ﬁrst exposed to this aspect of training. you have lost much of its ability to focus your muscles and weight in support of the martial action.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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learning how they interact together. if they are. and the sound itself has shock value against your opponent—often even if he or she is half-expecting you to yell. you will only be able to understand the martial usage of this by practising under competent supervision. rather drawn out sound you make when inhaling through your nose to “activate” (I prefer that term to “inﬂate. Baguazhang is very much the sum of its individual parts. so they only make a perfunctory use of sound to accompany techniques.
ADVANCED MARTIAL TRAINING
Returning to the subject of advanced martial training.000 things. However. In general. with a little practice. For martial purposes. like the eyes. Traditionally. I found it very difﬁcult to get used to the concept of making noise as part of my martial methods. it is not too much of a stretch to describe qigong as representing wuji. It loosens and focuses the abdominal area (muscles and connective tissue) to provide stability and aid in the absorption of blows to the torso. While learning this skill. Real martial sound has to slightly lead the physical expression of the HA. slow and even—like the breath itself. leads to the advanced concepts that make up the 10. most modern martial artists no longer are exposed to such concepts or. It can increase the power and speed of your strikes signiﬁcantly. you should practise with some volume. not just accompany it. which gives birth to the basic martial practices of taiji. For self-healing purposes. In normal respiration. and that it. do not take it seriously. If you make the sound before or after the martial action.” which implies that you are too much like a rubber ball) the abdomen and tan-tien. acts as a mediator between your intention (Yi) and the Qi. The initial strangled squeaks and grunts tend to provoke laughter more than anything else in a training room. However. There are several reasons for using the HA sound. HEN and HA Sounds Superﬁcially. HEN is the gentle.

it is also essential to learn how to use this type of breath automatically. Make sure that the shouts are short and sharp. a well trained bagua practitioner feels as if the upper part of his or her body is ﬂuid and relatively light. Let’s be pragmatic and use the analogy of pushing a car: if you don’t breathe properly while exerting physical effort (some teachers refer to this as having insufﬁcient “pneumatic pressure” in the core muscles of the torso—particularly in the abdominal area. hence contributing to ﬁrmer stances and more powerful use of the feet and legs. As to reverse breathing. It is also true that some qigong teachers tell their students that women will naturally use reverse breathing all the time as it is natural to their gender or that breathing is not all that important. and the actual physical difference in the way that the Qi circulates may well be purely in the mind. and come from the lower torso and the tan-tien rather than from the upper chest or throat. or effortlessly shrugs off the effects of repeated blows. a competent practitioner can maintain a sense of root while moving freely. this type of breathing is essential to learning contact martial stills and so deserves further elaboration. Of course. (N. By the way. the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu was thinking partially of this kind of training when he wrote in his famous philosophical treatise Tao Te-Ching that a baby can scream all day without getting hoarse because it breathes naturally and. Of course. the traditional theory states that your internal energy goes up the back during the inhalation and down the front during the exhalation. While using this idea when striking someone or being struck yourself. while during a reverse breath it goes up the back on the exhalation and down the front on the inhalation.B. which can have serious consequences in a ﬁght. The goal is to have air in you at point of impact and your torso not in a contracting phase. Thus.
.… Reverse Breathing I’ve already touched on this in the previous topic. without tension. while his legs are heavy and ﬁrmly rooted to the ﬂoor without being rigid. this results in having insufﬁcient muscle power to do the work at hand. this process also. this is complicated because your torso—except for the point of contact—must remain relatively relaxed to avoid causing your structure to topple or affect your balance.) If you are exhaling and contracting the abdominal area while ﬁghting. you are in for trouble if punched well. has much to do with visualisation. even from a traditional point of view. However. In natural breathing. as it can save you from having the wind knocked out of you if you are hit with any power in some parts of the front of the torso. by implication. In the beginning don’t do too many at one time. by using the mind. It is only on TV and in the movies that the good guy doesn’t get hit. as well as where the psoas muscles connect with the lower back). Perhaps. Anyone who has been around infants and toddlers will know the truth of this.76
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to provide an element of startle to your tactics. being rooted does not mean that you are planted in the ﬂoor. as your throat may get hoarse if you overdo the volume of the shouting and don’t get it right. the physical sense of fullness in the tan-tien area can be transmitted down to the legs.

is not going to give you much time or space to react with any of these speciﬁc jings! Martially. This word can mean “sperm. but this is an elusive skill that comes. These texts were not designed to be instructions for beginners. when the average modern student reviews these lengthy lists of jings. You can not think or plan your way out of a real combative situation.” It is also essential to remember that in the older texts the author meant his words to be read only by his family members or senior students and perhaps by their eventual senior students. more intellectual ones tend to assume that being able to go through the motions of circling their hands and bodies in a connected manner with a partner is somehow enough to stop a real punch. I think it makes better sense for the average modern practitioner to stop obsessing about learning dozens of separate jings and only distinguish a few key ones. Those readers also understood how the various jings interacted and supported each other from practical combative experience. while older. if at all. Younger. In practice. and as the martial situation demands. actual physical contact becomes less and less essential.” or “a skilful physical application of the body and mind. it is important to consider that these were notes for experienced students who already knew how to apply all or most of these skills in a martial context. Ting Jing
Ting (“listening”) jing is the most basic of the necessary skills and one of the most elusive martially. Consequently.” or “the vital life force contained in hormones. Remember that an opponent who is charging you swinging wildly and powerfully. these interrelated skills must be so automatic that they are done by your body and mind in the correct sequence. it is impossible to do many of the described jings in isolation.” The development of these essential energies requires competent hands-on instruction as well as good training partners with whom you practise in a controlled manner on a regular basis. What is
. or launching a surprise attack. and hsing-i texts that have been translated into English in recent years will reveal a bewildering number of martial jings that apparently have to be understood by the internal arts practitioner. and such a teacher would not have imagined—or desired—that his words would reach a modern Western audience. rather than being just a basic choreography.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
Jing
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Reading any of the taiji. after many years of practice. The word itself can be confusing. you can only react. as the meaning can vary depending on how you pronounce it or the context in which it is used. bagua. ﬁtter students tend to substitute speed and power as soon as they feel threatened. In the long run.
Remember that listening requires you to be able to survive the initial attack and successfully make contact with the opponent rather than being overwhelmed by that contact. The few real internal martial experts I have met seem to focus more on teaching their students the basics and encouraging them to understand the martial truth behind “seizing the moment to gain the advantage.

the “understanding” one has the skill and experience to listen and interpret whether a loss of balance or a physical technique is a mistake on the other person’s part or a feint to lure them into compromising their tactical position.
. Alan Weiss. By the way. in Western martial arts terms this jing relates to the high-level applications of parrying and deﬂecting force rather than resisting or running away from it. or with their legs. understand. and a calm mind. or Tim Cartmell. Not surprisingly. it is important to remember that striking in this way is an application of energy rather than one speciﬁc technique although each style or teacher will usually have their preferences for how fa-jing is done and which martial tools are used.
Those of you new to bagua may wonder what this mysterious skill actually looks like. In bagua this is usually transmitted physically through the palm. has to be seen or felt to be believed. they avoid or deﬂect it at the last moment.” This certainly applies to bagua as well. and then deﬂect or neutralise a variety of attacks without using excessive tension or muscle in either your arms or your body while still staying within the correct ﬁghting distance and being able to keep from being struck. Instead. a real expert can express it with their elbows and shoulders. but he does not know me. thrown. It also warrants more explanation than the previous three. especially when you try to copy the skills and body mechanics of the few real experts who are still around. however. In other words. although a fa-jing strike. Again.
I suppose. or controlled while maintaining your own balance. when done by someone like Erle Montaigue. once two opponents touch. Hua Jing
Hua (“neutralising”) jing means being able to stick. space. listen. running away from an incoming force does not work in close quarters—that is why the effective internal styles do not pull away from it. through a head-butt. Fa-jing
Fa (“explosive” or “attacking”) jing is difﬁcult to learn.
One of the relevant sayings in the taiji classics is “I know my opponent. It is not just punching suddenly or with a lot of power and speed.78
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comparatively easy to do in a formal exercise in class is much harder to achieve when someone is actually moving in with a real attack. pragmatically. as you need the ability to stick and listen with some clarity to begin to realise how hard it is to understand another person’s balance and intention through physical contact. as being able “to fa” is useless without the ability to do the other jings I just listed. One way to deﬁne it is to say that fa-jing is a sudden expression of whole body energy focussed through a part of the body into a precise target area. On the other hand. Dong Jing
Dong (“understanding”) jing is also easy enough to discuss and much harder to practise. it comes at the end of my list of essential jings. hips and buttocks. resisting force is certainly better than running away—the reason we have such a variety of hard styles that can work effectively against an opponent with lesser or similar skills.

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Unfortunately, few experts, much less their students, can strike without “winding up” and still generate impact over the short distances that hand-to-hand combat occupies. In other words, real fa-jing feels short, sharp, powerful, and disorienting to the recipient. By contrast, the one who delivers it appears relaxed, balanced, and calm before, during, and after the delivery of that strike. Real fa-jing skills also involve the use of the mind, the eyes, and the breath (i.e., reverse breathing) in speciﬁc ways. The role of one’s Qi is also vital, but that is beyond the scope of this handbook. Another way to look at fa-jing is to compare it to an external-style strike which in most such styles is delivered with a lot of muscular tension, with the power coming from the shoulders or turning the hips while in a solid stance. The body is more rigid and segmented than in an internal strike. By contrast, fa-jing involves more relaxed power, a sinking of the weight, storing and releasing of energy, shifting of weight, turning and twisting the waist, as well as using the ground connection. The body appears loose and “alive” to the casual observer. See how easy it sounds! In the end, learning to do this should be thought of as an aspect of your martial training and your solo practice. It shouldn’t become an obsession. If you really want the “good oil,” invest in one of Erle’s videos that are devoted to developing this kind of striking ability to get the details that lay the foundation of personal skill. By the way, it is hard to believe until you start experiencing it yourself, but it is actually much harder to control the expression of your fa-jing than it is to develop the ability to generate it. However, doing so is essential if you are to train safely and effectively with your fellow students. Even assuming you can develop this elusive power, note that many internal experts say such training is dangerous, and one can overdo it even knowing how to execute such strikes effortlessly. Some internal martial practitioners and teachers (Liang Shou Yu and Tim Cartmell are two I have heard say the same thing) suggest that too much fa-jing practice is bad for the health, and there is no need to routinely practise such tactics in solo forms as long as you do it in moderation while hitting a heavy bag or mitt that can absorb the impact. Even Erle Montaigue, who is extremely talented at what is sometimes called short power, has said that your forms eventually should only have a hint of power when playing them. Of course, this supposes that one has learned how to do fa-jing properly in the ﬁrst place. I tell my students to focus on precision and timing, to learn the basic skills solo with only a moderate amount of speed, and then practise them full-pace on a striking mitt or heavy bag. Only when there is some skill in both contexts should they advance to practising techniques with each other. This is particularly important when two people of different weights and heights are practising together. Again, as I say to them, when you learn a martial art that might work combatively, there has to be the risk while training, but most injuries are actually caused by one student not paying attention to what they are doing or going too fast. As in any aspect of efﬁcient training, learning fa-jing is as simple as having a competent instructor for a role model who can actually do the strike, as opposed to telling you how marvelously his or her teacher did it. Having found such a role model, you have to develop the necessary physical skills (i.e., a healthy, supple body, proper body mechanics and conditioning, elasticity of the tendons and muscles). All this takes time, patience, and more than a little effort on your long road to making your skills look effortless to the casual observer.

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Iron Shirt and “Taking a Punch”

CHAPTER FIVE

Many hard styles teach to exhale while striking, and it is often taught in the internal arts in the context of reverse breathing; but others teach the opposite: you ﬁll the form with inhalation as it opens and expands. Of course, with time and training, you don’t think consciously about breathing, and the end result seems to be that the torso learns to breath like an accordion, or old style furnace bellows as it opens and closes, folds and unfolds, and that it can do what is needed automatically when struck. As with many relevant advanced skills, it tends to be difﬁcult to do one thing without having some skill at those other things that provide a foundation for each other. In this way, unless you have mastered natural and reverse breathing, it is difﬁcult to do HEN/HA and fa-jing. If you haven’t started to understand the latter method of breathing, then training in getting hit is either a painful failure, or you learn to take a strike simply by tensing the abdominal muscles. Like so many other aspects of training, learning to be hit is a complex process which is difﬁcult to master unless your instructor is capable of doing and transmitting the feel of it. Beware of teachers who have you train on each other and refuse to take a blow themselves. They may understand the theory but are using you as the laboratory rats without being honest about it! To my mind, it is almost criminal to teach modern beginners with no martial experience that they can put all of their trust in “making a golden bell cover for the torso” out of Weiqi, or not having to learn how to defend themselves because they can learn to project Qi at an attacker. In some cases, the instructor actually begins to believe that they have some mystical ability because the techniques seem to work so well on their students or co-operative peers. On a traditional martial level, those sifu who told the young Chinese patriot boxers at the turn of the last century during the Boxer Rebellion that their paper charms and esoteric qigong practices would stop the bullets of the foreign soldiers were probably not trying to mislead their followers. Most of them could have sincerely believed in what they were saying or had experienced the ability of the mind to minimise injury and stop the pain and bleeding from minor wounds. Faith in this case was the cause of death and injury. However, with a little effort you can learn to stop a strike to the front of the torso—even if you cannot stop bullets! As I wrote earlier, taking a punch is not simply a question of tensing up to make a wall out of your muscles in the torso. This can stop some of the pain and impact of a good punch, but it will disturb your balance and leave you open to a follow-up technique. Relaxing the torso completely also doesn’t work. In fact, that is the least productive route martially. Even when wearing a chest protector, a good punch (whether internal or external) hurts like hell and destroys your balance if you try to be totally soft when it hits. The answer lies in not too much, not too little muscle, learning to breath and relax properly, and more than a little faith. For beginners in this kind of training, receiving punches must become a conditioned response, in which the tissue being hit tenses momentarily on impact and then relaxes once

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the power is removed. Learning to do this is difﬁcult, but not impossible, and not just a question of hypnotising yourself so that you ignore the pain. By the way, traditionalists might say “you can learn Iron Shirt that can protect the face and head”; but having seen so many martial artists learn to break blocks of cement and slabs of wood with their forehead I wonder if that is true. In simple terms, getting used to being hit in the face is a matter of practice and correct alignment of the neck and chin, as well as keeping your mouth closed properly. Competent Western boxers learn to do this the hard way as a by-product of their training. A fortunate few learn to do it internally by accident or because of some natural aptitude. These are the boxers whom you see in the ring who seem totally unaffected by the strongest blows to the body. Even a mediocre Western boxer who bruises and staggers as a result of body blows can absorb an amazing amount of physical punishment to the torso, and does so for a number of years. There are lots of ex-boxers around, and you rarely hear of them dying or becoming invalids because of internal injuries to the torso. It is the blows to the head that are problematic and usually cause long-term disabilities and early deaths. The magniﬁcent ex-boxer Mohammed Ali is a sad example of such brain damage in his later years. Despite this, the easiest way to learn effective Iron Shirt in modern terms is to take up Western boxing on an amateur level, as the headgear will minimise the chances of long-term brain damage. Any good boxer learns to take pain and impact without getting internal injuries. It is also true that Western boxing, whether at an amateur or a professional level, is only suitable for those who are relatively young and ﬁt. A traditionalist would argue that it is also important to circulate and pack the Qi into the area being struck. Learning to do the latter involves learning and practising Iron Shirt Qigong, many styles of which have existed over the centuries. A few are still practised in some hard and soft styles. It is also only fair to say that many modern teachers have said that learning to take a punch will come naturally with proper form and qigong training. This may be true for those with much aptitude, but I doubt that the average student has much hope of learning to take a punch of any kind to the torso without training speciﬁcally to learn such skills. On the other hand, I no longer think that it is essential to do speciﬁc Iron Shirt Qigong methods to safely do the following methods; but I don’t regret the time I spent practising the traditional qigong sets that I did learn years ago. However you approach being a “human heavy bag,” as I said before, understanding how to do reverse abdominal breathing is essential. Similarly, doing regular standing qigong is essential both for good health and having a normal amount of Weiqi, which is the protective aspect of internal energy. Pragmatically, it is impossible to know if the Weiqi really does ﬂow to the surface of the skin when you are struck, but if you can visualise this happening—it helps! I have also had some success in teaching the concept by using a more modern analogy: imagine the push of the bare hand or the blow from a gloved ﬁst activates a force shield a la Star Trek that only lasts for the moment the attacking hand is in contact with you, and that

the willingness and need to learn it. Their respective right or left shoulders should be facing each other. Remember to push smoothly and not to strike in any way (i. and to practise on both sides. This method is the result of my own research and experimentation although it is based on methods used by a variety of internal experts that I have met or studied with over the years. this is well beyond learning from a written description. including some that involve receiving and returning a medicine ball. that I have experienced involves getting used to the idea of being hit while maintaining your balance and relative relaxation. As to the technique—best learned from someone who can do it—every competent method. and there are many ways to cheat (e. The Old Masters were correct in repeating endlessly that there is no substitute for personal instruction. What is in excess of its requirements is automatically “blown back” or “rebounded” to the attacker. While I teach a variety of exercises. A pair of students stand with their feet shoulder width apart. one foot slightly in front of the other while facing each other. not use too much muscle. I suppose that you can think of such imagery as being a modern interpretation of the old saying “Yi leads the Qi which leads the Li. Use a timer to monitor short rounds and switch partner sides and partners frequently.82
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this energy shield absorbs the attacker’s force and uses it to charge your own shield generators. then your right foot should be slightly forward. if you are doing so without personal instruction. and springing up with those joints instead of using
. but not least. and you have to put up with some pain and bruising in the beginning. and not move their feet while pushing the Receiver into moving his or her feet. you need competent instruction. especially if your partner resists skilfully. One person (the “Sender”) puts his open palm on the other person’s lower torso and pushes slowly and ﬁrmly into the other person (the “Receiver”). Don’t use a reverse stance. as well as real punches to the torso with both a boxing gloved hand and a bare hand punch.” As in all aspects of internal training. leaning into your partner. Last.. a good training partner you can trust. Oh. knowing how to take a punch is relatively useless for self-defence if you cannot carry the ﬁght effectively to the opponent.e. The Sender should have a balanced approach to how much force he or she uses: too much strength—and you will push the person over if you are bigger. overbending the knees. They should be close enough to each other so that their elbows remain comfortably bent even when the arms are extended.e. faith in the method you learn. Take turns being the “aggressor. and perseverance. your shoulders and arms will soon get tired. who also has his or her hand on the Sender’s lower torso. I will describe only one method that is relatively safe to experiment with..g. If you are smaller. traditional or otherwise. no sudden movements). in a natural stance. as it is easier to push by using the legs in either a crude or subtle manner. This basic method uses the open hand and relatively slow and gentle pushing only.” The idea is for both people to move their arms and legs as little as possible while receiving the push and try to help the other person fall over if their push is stiffer than your returning. The main rule is for the Sender to keep his or her balance. i. Oh. If your right hand is on your partner..

Erle Montaigue calls the most primitive part of the brain stem “the reptile mind. it is similar to the infamous junk yard dog—some animals are born mean. weight. When this happens. Assuming that you also have effective martial skill. ﬁght it. height. your 45 pound dog suddenly seems twice his size and will take on a much larger opponent without hesitation. You have to listen with your palm both when receiving a push and while trying to return it with the gentle inﬂation of the abdomen. most of you have trained with students who were always needlessly “reptilian” when sparring or training martial techniques. fear it. but if a member of the family is attacked. resisting the push. and then using your arm to return the push with it) while doing this exercise. or who has a great deal of control. Rover almost instantly goes back to being a pet—it doesn’t remain in killer mode. Reptile Brain and Animal Play Again. You trust Rover. Eventually. or mate with it?” Martial sports-oriented arts can give you a ﬁghting edge against someone who is interested in humiliating and dominating you. At ﬁrst. and deﬂecting or returning an upward push is the hardest of all. Dealing with a downward push is the easiest for anyone with rooting and relaxing skills. and some can turn it on and off as necessary. the so-called reptile mind can make your training more liable to succeed in a life and death situation. you need a different partner. this is another topic that really cannot be separated from the others in the sense that accessing this mind state is one of the “engines” that make self-defence workable from a combative point of view. the exercise can easily turn into a stalemate when neither would seem to be doing much to a casual observer. practise only with a partner who is roughly your height and weight. he is lovable and won’t hurt the kids or bite the postman. Some students ﬁnd it difﬁcult to do. but most who have any aptitude for the combative arts can learn to apply this mind set (it is not the same thing as just using rage as an emotional fuel for your tactics) and. and arm reach become less of a deciding factor. Speaking of dogs. and when the ﬁght is over. Such training is much harder to control than to access in some ways. dealing with a straight ahead energy is harder. Perhaps. This is the home of the primitive reﬂexes that served us so well for millions of years when our ancestors were simpler beings with only a few concerns to worry about—to put it simply. I am sure. so it is important to be perceptive when practising. as in most ﬁghts between young men. Oh. Erle Montaigue said it well when he compared using reptile brain in martial training to being like the family pet. If both partners have roughly the same level of skill and are roughly the same size. or you need to move onto the advanced versions of this exercise. but is not as useful against someone with a great deal of practical ﬁghting experience and the real desire to harm you.
. the twisting of the spine and a minimum of physical movement or effort.” to differentiate it from the more complex parts of the brain that grew out of it.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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the waist and spine when returning the push. some are beaten and abused until they become mean. and it is rarely necessary in modern life. “Do I eat it. Oh yes.

Being well balanced and stable in his postures while slow and lumbering. There are normally eight animals in the majority of bagua styles. For example. or alone in your personal relationships. Leaving aside the issue of reptile mind. He is also playful and renowned for his bravery. and is traditionally used in some regions of China as a charm against thieves and burglars. and your training shouldn’t turn you into the equivalent. I think becoming a bear or a wolf in certain circumstances is not outside the realm of possibility—it shows up too frequently. for all of our ﬂaws. He is heavy and strong. then the use of totem animals is not an alien concept to it. the herd moves on leaving the ailing animal to the waiting lions —not from cruelty or self-interest but simply from obeying their own natures. and the practice of his methods stimulates and warms the kidneys and body in winter.e. the Chinese shamans wore bear masks or heads and imitated the stepping of the bear on its hind feet in ritual dances. without trying to become the animal or imitate all of its mannerisms. are portrayed. This animal has several sides to his nature in the Chinese martial arts. However. The literalists try to imitate an animal as closely as possible. in parts of old China. Most humans wouldn’t. not to mention many of the Chinese hard styles.
. Viking berserkers and werewolves). In ancient time. as it will give you an idea of how the animals. as I have experienced over the years in hsing-i and liu he ba fa as well. power. from the natural world. I favour the bear (or does the bear favour me?) and have related most easily to the movements of that animal. In other internal and external systems there can be ﬁve. (The Ainu in Japan still revere the bear as an ancestor. the self-defence aspect of animal play means that either you choose the animal that suits your physique and concentrate on it for the training you mean to use in life and death situations. both in history and mythology (i. both real and mythical.84
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Nobody normal wants to live with a guard dog that is always ready to bite. By contrast. a monkey stylist will make facial expressions. ten. humans have something that animals do not have—compassion. The bear is a symbol of strength. I will describe him in some detail. the peasants believed that humans were descended from bears. the abstractionists try to copy the spirit of the movement of a particular animal. This takes two basic approaches. If a zebra gets sick. and healing wisdom. imitating how that animal moves and ﬁghts. or twelve animals. As far as I am concerned. and that is one of the important issues that separates us. Again. I would rather be the descendant of a grizzly than an ape! If it is true that Taoism is a shamanic religion.. he is capable of sudden bursts of speed. or to those aboriginal or European cultures which revered nature and sought to transcend the boundaries between the spiritual and earthly dimensions. one of the central concepts of the traditional Chinese martial disciplines is learning by observing and imitating animals. for good and bad. or the animal chooses you. In fact. Without getting too carried away by the links between Taoism and shamanism. hooting sounds and ﬂeascratching movements while doing the forms and applications. we see the same idea expressed in the concept of using animals as models for your martial movement in most styles of hsing-i and bagua. or you may ﬁnd yourself constantly in trouble with the law.) I have to admit. The internal approach can run the gamut of these two extremes.

Erle Montaigue has said. I only want to acknowledge the possibility of becoming a bear if I have to ﬁght a gang of bikers—rather than being one permanently. from the Garden of Eden. And. and “C” back are the ﬂip side of the peace that comes through qigong. if you gaze for long into an abyss. “He who ﬁghts with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. some days you get the bear. martial force is an expression of the laws of physics: strength exerted on an object or person. as well as different ways of holding the spine and the body. becoming like an animal is really only suitable in life and death situations. can bring about the requisite physiological response—but as to whether or not this is an example of auto-suggestion. This also implies that the practitioner will be able to use whole body strength. On a more esoteric level. Even though I am not a fan of hunting for sport. some day the bear will get you!” I’d like to ﬁnish with a cautionary note sounded long ago and in another context by the philosopher. for good and bad. is up for discussion. a variety of hand postures. It is also important to remember that no kind of mental conditioning can guarantee that you will prevail against all opponents—even if you are well-conditioned and well-trained. as opposed to localised strength or crude tricks of leverage. As to how we trigger these attributes. Friedrich Nietzsche (c. and killing and eating my own cubs if I get the chance! I tell my senior students that reptile mind. I do like the spirit of that old hunter’s adage: “When hunting bears. and more than a little scary.”
SELF-DEFENCE
Before discussing self-defence skills. eagle vision. only partly tongue-in-cheek.… I think there is a lot to be said for understanding your favourite animal(s) in whatever art you train in. it is important to have a working deﬁnition of internal martial force. not for dealing with annoying bullies or with your training partners. The latter might give you added ferocity or make your opponent think that you are crazy. but wouldn’t be much help against a skilful opponent who was able to remain calm. but you wouldn’t want to be an animal for daily life. living alone except for mating season. or accessing some primeval survival mechanism. Compassion and the ability to choose how we act are what really separates us. You have to be able to become (not imitate) an animal for life and death struggles. His words are certainly relevant to the subject of animal energies and self-defence.1844 –1900). the abyss gazes also into you. that the internal arts are environmentally
. the ability to quickly and efﬁciently put mass into motion and focus its impact to your best advantage. On a mundane level. Erle’s stuff is so effective. internal force is also an application of Qi and of intention to maximise the effectiveness of your methods while minimising your physical efforts. or also uses this kind of mental state.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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In any case. because he has mated natural movement and effective subconscious ﬁghting skills to the reptile/berserker mind. and use leverage effectively. as long as you don’t confuse understanding the spirit and the movement with becoming that animal for training or ﬁghting purposes.

By the way.” or teach their students to “project Qi out of their palms at attackers.” without focus. It is often laughed at by martial artists who conﬁne their practice to the co-operative atmosphere of the martial classroom. Doing this means that you use rebound energy to power your continuing strikes rather than reloading after every strike as in a hard style counter—like an automatic ﬁrearm rather than a revolver. are fond of categorising and ﬁnd an almost magical signiﬁcance in certain numbers. Similarly. or limit their practice to overly rubbery and co-operative sensitivity training. Being “green” also has the implication that you are putting in and withdrawing your own energy every time you make contact—and not expending your energy in a draining fashion. not in a particularly good condition. Those who advocate this No Force training usually emphasise circular form or standing qigong as being the epitome of their art. but their contempt is unwarranted.86
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“green” because the idea is not to expend your own energy but to recycle it as you counter an opponent’s tactics. Skilful Force. Internal Force.
. Upright and Integrated Force. However. many socalled primitive people also express internal body mechanics in they way they stand and move—the Masai of Africa and the natives of the Amazon forest express efﬁcient posture and movement in a way that seems alien to out-of-shape Westerners.” They are also often overweight. it won’t do anything for your character or your health. you may ﬁnd it useful to divide the various basic expressions of martial force into ﬁve categories: No Force. as opposed to being a speciﬁc kind of applied energy based on efﬁcient body mechanics. and humans in general. and barely succeed in keeping him or her upright. No Force The average practitioner of No Force has chosen to deﬁne bagua training as a complete lack of muscular force and effort. Brute Force. As internal arts practitioners. In this way not using force is interpreted as a total absence of force of any kind. and actually seem to feel that this is somehow an indication they have “got it” martially. Brute Force Brute Force depends on strength and some understanding of crude techniques or just experience at brawling. In the relative safety of a training environment. much less martially capable. as brawling regularly is one of the best ways to learn how to ﬁght if that is all that interests you. Instructors of such approaches are usually the ones who advocate to “do your form and it will bring self-defence skills automatically. it is easy for both teacher and students alike to come to believe that a lack of force is somehow magical. I am getting ahead of myself in discussing such issues. The movements of such a person seem “mushy. You don’t have to be very ﬁt to learn how to ﬁght—but being ﬁt cannot hurt your efforts in that direction. natural body mechanics are found in many people who don’t do the internal arts—any talented athlete in any sport have discovered or been trained to use the most efﬁcient movement and posture to do the sport in which they excel. and either don’t practise any martial exercises. Of course.

However. . it is also very difﬁcult to ﬁnd better role models. Skilful Force is effective in defence against those using similar tactics. by an older pot-bellied brawler who wasn’t impressed by the talk of black belts and was used to getting hit because ﬁghting was his idea of a recreational activity! If your opponent shrugs off the impact of your best technique as he rushes in and gets his hands around your neck.” and its practitioners have taken their understanding of Skilful Force one step farther. At this level. In addition. no matter what their size and relative strength. Most of the instructors I have met who teach the martial aspects of their respective internal arts never progress beyond this stage. the ability to use it effectively fades with age. In what I like to call “the pseudo-internal arts. and co-ordination with emotional maturity. Skilful Force Skilful Force is an evolutionary step up from Brute Force and combines factors of body mass. speed. those using this category of force are also less likely to be willing to give up their status as established experts to take their training a step
. In addition. They have learned or realised that an upright. and ﬂexibility of the arms and legs tend to be the key components to developing this ability. taiji. and superior technical skill. smoother and more rounded. Upright and Integrated Force This type of force is what I like to call “semi-internal. balanced posture enables them to use centrifugal force in a very effective manner. strength. or qigong as a commercial sideline to their hard kung-fu or Japanese Style. as opposed to intuitive application of principles.” it is usually used by those instructors who teach bagua. However. Their body mechanics tend to be much less stiff than the earlier categories. Depending on the training. as it becomes very effective against the techniques of those using the other forces previously described. the practitioner of this kind of force has learned to mesh the turning of the body and the shifting of weight so that most of his or her mass is behind each technique. in all fairness. knocked out of them . or unskilled aggressors. many external stylists develop admirable levels of Skilful Force and are strong and capable exponents of their respective arts.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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Although Brute Force works very effectively against smaller or unskilled opponents and is often used by very large people or bullies. The training emphasis is usually on techniques and tactics. many a ﬁt modern sport martial artist has had the .. and is of less use against someone who uses the following three categories of martial force. human nature being what it is. strength. As well as being upright. particularly against straight line attacks. you’d better have a back-up plan (or a heavy stick) ready—or reevaluate how you train if you survive. martial experience. Such practitioners are often able to retain their skills into middle age although they usually must moderate or curtail their participation in sparring or competition in favour of teaching or form practice.

Such a person spontaneously uses body mechanics so well that it seems effortless in comparison to the frenzied speed and muscle of the attacker. As I said before. such core exercises teach relaxation under pressure. herbal therapy. However. Beware of 35 year-old Grand Masters. much less acquire. perseverance and the ability to admit that you don’t know it all and never will. Many start up the ladder. and practises at least one of the healing aspects of the internal arts—acupressure. • He is at least middle-aged and has a great deal of martial and life experience. as they are sometimes described on web sites and in American martial arts magazines. The master practitioner who has developed such skill is able to blend his or her movements with an attacker’s strikes and movements so well as to almost seem to disappear momentarily. explodes without warning. They often form a natural progression of development for the maturing internal arts practitioner. etc.88
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further. Many instructors say or imply that their practice has this quality. he seems boneless like a snake or a cat. nor is he seriously overweight. In addition. There are key variables to look for when identifying an instructor or practitioner. each of the previous categories have some martial value. of the many internal experts that I have met in the last decade.
. • He feels rubbery or springy when you touch him. Aside from having competent instruction at key points along this “ladder of life. Internal Force Internal Force is a difﬁcult force to describe. no matter how skilful you become. and there is nothing wrong with conﬁning your study of the martial side of the art to the basic martial exercises. but fewer have actually advanced that far. massage. • He is shaped rather like a tree trunk in the sense of not being top-heavy in muscle development. and is rare even in the Orient. outside of my limited experience. qigong. he or she can counter-attack with such speed and precision that it is almost impossible for a bystander to perceive. For example. but get stuck on a particular rung. Neither is he built like a weightlifter. Done properly. • He is usually equally expressive in both solo form and combat skills. but unfortunately the real experts of this calibre are rare. as well as timing. can change from one state to another with a spontaneity that is both breathtaking and frightening. by bending the knee and publicly admitting that someone can actually be farther along the way than they are. I am sure that there are others out there. please don’t assume that competence in these will somehow automatically bring self-defence skills or the ability to generate Internal Force. • He seems to stand as still as a mountain. only a few are outstanding role models of what it means to internalise one’s martial practice. When moving. Such practitioners are few and far between in real life. With the exception of No Force. there is more to bagua and to life than learning how to ﬁght. who is developing real internal quality to their force.” the ingredients to a successful climb are patience.

the ﬁrst contact may injure or shock you enough to leave you open to subsequent blows. As part of what the Chinese rather delightfully call “wild history. he gets up as if nothing had happened. and. It is easy to get carried away with a feeling of spiritual or tactical superiority when doing an internal martial art like bagua. I will admit that there may well be something in such old tales. the good guys don’t always win in real life.”
. being able to work in close contact with the attacker without being immediately grappled or thrown. In addition. The ﬁrst one or two effective techniques usually decide who is the victim and who is the victor. you have to practise accordingly. with the most. Sadly. However. both psychologically and in terms of being hit. knows how he or she will react until they are faced with real danger the ﬁrst time as opposed to sparring with an opponent in a friendly competition or with a fellow student in the safety of training environment. If you want to maximise your self-defence potential. Similarly. very few instructors attempt to apply the principles of their art to semi-realistic ﬁghting situations by having their students train. regardless of their skill level. and moral superiority is small consolation for a beating that leaves you or a loved one emotionally or physically maimed. or who are not trying to hurt you or make you look bad. when you only ever practise in the safety of your school with people who don’t have much relevant martial experience. unlike the movies. while over the following days the rufﬁans are all incapacitated by injuries caused by the beating they thought they were giving their victim. and don’t just hope to stumble upon a suitable tactic by being totally on the defensive. However. Having had the experience of striking a modern-day expert or two with stiff force when I was a relative beginner. In combat. In a ﬁght success comes to those who blend offensive and defensive tactics. Remember the advice of a Confederate General from the American Civil War days when asked what his strategy was in battle: “Git thar ﬁrst. no one. which implies staying physically balanced and using effective tactics immediately. If you are not used to such events. Kicks are rarely used unless as an element of surprise or to ﬁnish someone who has been knocked down. relaxation means not panicing if struck or suddenly forced to ﬁght. most of us are not capable of such marvellous demonstrations of passive resistance. where ﬁghts go on for what seems like hours. at least some of the time.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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However.” most students have read or been told stories about the old master who passively allows himself to be beaten by a gang of laughing rufﬁans. When they leave. real violence tends to start and be over almost before you can analyse what is happening. against vigorous or spontaneous attacks by students who are not being overly cooperative in how they attack. only to have it rebound painfully into my limbs or push me over. stiffness combined with rage or skill is a different proposition. a strong committed attack of any kind will likely easily penetrate the skills of an average practitioner if he or she is overly defensive and yields passively to someone who doesn’t obey the rules. and one not usually encountered in a classroom setting. Stiffness combined with lack of commitment is relatively easy to deal with if you can relax even marginally more than your opponent.

This can also provide an opportunity to lock up one or more joints. Tim Cartmell. but it is an important issue that often gets glossed over. Which leads us to the third point.” Of course. Stealing the timing: When the opponent doesn’t want to take the initiative. throw him. or trip. Such drills are designed to make training relatively safe and are not necessarily a precursor to free ﬁghting. when the art was still primarily about ﬁghting. as you simultaneously counter-attack. you must either feint an attack or extend a hand inviting the opponent to make contact with you. Dominating the initial contact: When you touch the opponent with your arm or hand while deﬂecting and neutralising his attacking limb. Once this contact is made.” and “You must eat bitter to be full. This always brings us back to the issue (I know. to upset his balance. and were not designed to teach the fundamentals of ﬁghting. even when this is counterproductive. For example. hopefully. of course. in North America at least) that most bagua practitioners in China in the old days. two venerable ones in the Chinese martial arts are my favourites: “Not to hit is to cheat the student. you could say that there are ﬁve essential self-defence skills. were experienced martial artists who already understood the mechanics of timing and distance and were used to the thump-andbump of physical contact on a variety of levels when they ﬁrst were exposed to bagua.90
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In self-defence the biggest obstacle to making the jump from the basic martial skills is learning how to make contact with the incoming force from an attacker.” Attempting to reduce the necessary factors to a manageable number. most competent bagua styles have training methods developed to teach the skills of connecting. They are of much less value for beginners and even intermediate level practitioners. sensitivity drills were designed to teach just that. Nowadays. most students of bagua have little or no relevant martial experience to bring to their sensitivity training. so it is less useful unless they are taught the martial basics either beforehand or concurrently with the sensitivity training. This tactic can be particularly useful against those who have mistaken the forest for the trees in that their martial training has conditioned them to stick at all cost. wrote in 2003 on his website’s discussion board: “The theory is. a modern teacher of the internal arts whom I greatly respect. and the push hands drills are taught later to bring the sensitivity of ﬁghting skills up to higher levels. Speaking of useful old expressions hinting that the internal arts were not originally a New Age practice.…
. For students such as these. Most schools will have you sparring and free ﬁghting ﬁrst. I keep harping on this. you use that contact to control or “rub” the limb so as to distract him (even momentarily). you can use the bridge you have created to attack. neutralising or yielding to force. it is a waste of time to learn to neutralise incoming force. any such saying is best viewed as a starting point for long-term study by those who are serious in the training and have considerable experience. as well as. get an angle on an opponent and unbalance or ‘uproot’ him if you have no power or technique to close the deal with after. strike with the other hand.

but reﬁning those skills will take a lifetime of ongoing effort. If he or she is bigger. By contrast.. efﬁciency and authority a beginner can only marvel at. I have found this to be true.” Over the decades. so that he or she moves with the ease. One important aspect of this is that the safest way to defend against their arms is to work the “closed side” (i. Short-term skills can be rough. In addition. if he attacks with his right hand. This makes it more difﬁcult to avoid being attacked by his left hand but also implies that you have better targets available to your counterattack. Sticking until it is not necessary: If your opponent tries to break the bridge you have created. it will soon become obvious that most of those teaching are not teaching self-defence skills that would have any hope of working outside of the relative safety of their classes. you defend with your left and move to his outer side). “The methods should give you basic self-defence skills in a few months or years. as you have to attack his. you have superior positional advantage to take the opponent down without much struggle. as the aggressor’s torso is protected by his arm. Conversely. Working the open vs closed sides of the opponent: One of the toughest problems in ﬁghting someone with skill is that they will try to limit your options in the same way you will try to limit theirs. if you spend enough time studying internal arts and have the opportunities to study with a variety of experts. to distract him from pressing his advantage or from reestablishing effective martial contact. and so have many of my students. as well as the option to escape if need be. In other words. my main teachers both told me the same thing over the years. In order to end a real ﬁght you need to dominate your opponent. but the problem is that this works both ways. until it is no longer necessary to do so. so to speak. if necessary: If the opponent has skill and successfully adheres to your limb. he has no access to yours. There are plenty of vulnerable areas to attack when inside. If you are behind or outside your opponent’s arms. it will often be very difﬁcult to do so in a face-to-face exchange. Long-term training (assuming competent instruction) polishes the experienced practitioner.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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Breaking contact. stronger. This doesn’t mean the beginner can not learn to apply the same methods for combat
. This is often easier for the smaller. you must break that contact by withdrawing the limb while counter-attacking. Maximising Your Self-defence Skills It makes sense to assume that the opponent is dangerous (stronger and technically sound). When ﬁghting on the inside (and sometimes you have no choice) your opponent has just as much access and opportunity to attack your vulnerable areas. working the “open side” implies that you defend against the aggressor’s right hand with your left and stay in front of him. However. you must follow his actions to maintain contact with one hand and/or a part of your body while you continue to attack. his torso is relatively open. but limits somewhat your targets for counter-attack. and having superior positional advantage may be the only way we can win the encounter.e. the opposite does not hold true. as well as yours. You have an opportunity to attack his vulnerable areas. involve the risk of bruises (to the ego and elsewhere!) and a substantial amount of sweat—the beginning of the forging process. lighter person to do as a defensive action. or skilled at ﬁghting.

it is essential to learn and practise a few methods that suit your body type and physical attributes so that they become reﬂexive. it is also a shame to learn skills you think might be useful. reportedly. I am reminded of the delightful story of the hsing-i master in China. One student. • For self-defence. • Patience is a useful attribute. get out!” Most modern students don’t want to learn so much as they want to feel they have all the answers. It is a far different thing to learn how to hit without hurting your limbs. who was supposedly lecturing his students on how important it was to study with a good heart. as a by-product to self-defence skill.e. rather than practise many things in an indifferent manner. What Should You Look for in Your Training? • An understanding of balance and body mechanics that rely less on muscle mass and strength and more on leverage. This is the hardest to cultivate in an internal manner (good teachers are few and far between). “If you don’t want to learn properly.92
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purposes. especially if you don’t train in them every day for three to ﬁve years. What Do You Need to Bring to Such Training? • Some physical strength and health are essential to safely train in any martial method that might work in a worst case scenario. his attitude is not
. sensitivity and efﬁcient body mechanics (i. but would actually be counterproductive if you ever had to protect yourself or your loved ones from a serious attack. or unused to regular physical activity. One instructor even assured me with a hint of a sneer that it was wrong to make any kind of contact with your partner while doing applications. However. as opposed to simply punching the air. whole body usage). as well as how to absorb or transmit the impact without bouncing off what you hit! • Some experience with close-quarters physical contact with your training partners. • Willingness to invest in loss and learn from your mistakes. why practise ﬁghting at all?” The master’s answer was. The lack of experience with any kind of body contact is the main reason why most modern martial artists would have a rough time trying to apply their skills against a real street ﬁghter. and that the training was ultimately to teach the students how to avoid ﬁghting. Such training is not suitable for everyone. This is one of the pleasures of bagua as a martial system which. impatiently asked. Most of us are fortunate enough (or mature enough) to never need to develop such skills. It is easy to be smug with the speed of your strikes while doing a fast form or practising solo. as internal style martial skills are not learned quickly. as you would not be training your Qi properly! Sadly.. brings better health and even emotional/spiritual beneﬁts. as opposed to playing. or against someone really intent on hitting them. • Experience at hitting actual targets with some power. especially those with serious health problems. but even the crudest skill at taking a blow or being thrown will soon teach you many valuable lessons about what relaxation and balance are really all about in relation to self-defence. rather than get mad at yourself or your training partner. “If we are supposed to learn to avoid violence. timing.

Common sense seems to go out the window if you judge by the number of schools whose teachers make their students fall over. 1987) that the key to defending against a knife was to remember your mother’s good advice when she caught you playing with the kitchen cutlery: “Don’t play with that. Defending Against Knives and Clubs A famous man (no. I don’t often go into the speciﬁcs of defending against such weapons with my students because it is relatively useless to learn knife or club defences until you already have considerable physical skill in all the basics and have absorbed Erle Montaigue’s excellent advice. It is also important to remember that you have to learn how to handle these weapons offensively with some ability to learn how to defend against them. You can’t learn to defend properly if you have no idea of how to defend. Vol. I have met many supposed experts over the years who are teach methods that have no hope of working in the real world. but you also have to have contact! Conversely. You could call it another aspect of Yin and Yang being balanced!
. you’ll get cut!” In fact. even though they may seem to work in a classroom setting.95. and you may have to give up a piece of yourself to get the knife wielder. and vice versa. However. whoops. They are used to close-quarter combat and to having to react properly while under real pressure. • Complex methods that rely on the compliance of an overly stiff partner to have any success of application. and a lot of sweat along the way! In the long run. that was me) once wrote in an article for a British police magazine (Police Review. or that of someone who really knows something about defending against such cutlery. • Anyone who tells you that you can learn an effective martial art without any initial physical effort. a competent internal art relies less and less on crude strength and technique. this also explains why most modern experts with any real self-defence skills usually have a background in wrestling or throwing arts or have boxed (whether Western or Thai). November 13. this holds true of unarmed techniques as well. Incidentally. and it is possible to continue to train with beneﬁt when one is past his or her physical prime. What Should You Avoid in Your Training? • An emphasis on sticking and yielding. a few bruises. even though common sense should tell you that you have to have control in your martial contact. • Any teacher who claims that you can learn to project Qi as your main technique for self-defence skills. twitch and throw themselves by a ﬂick of master’s ﬁngers. the hardest aspect of defending against a knife is realising that you probably will get cut in some way. as to make these essential skills easier to understand and practise safely in a large group. they are often taught counterproductively in self-defence sense. an internal art that has some claim to being a true combative art will never be as effortless as it looks to the casual observer.BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS
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unique.

Without losing sight of the fact that any edged weapon can cause cuts to arteries that could kill you in minutes by causing shock or blood loss. I have witnessed a number of street ﬁghts. an experienced knife ﬁghter will expect you to block or grab the hand holding the weapon. but the attacker’s knife hand will often move in very small circles and erratically. you may be able roll with the impact of a blunt weapon if it is hitting a muscular portion of your body in order to counter-attack. and it takes little practice to be able to attack successfully with a knife—especially compared to how long it takes to learn how to defend against such attacks. knock the weapon loose from the attacker’s grip). or where the nerve endings come close to the surface. hopefully. Final Words on Self-defence Since beginning to teach in 1985. The point of a knife is often so small and sharp that only a relatively light amount of force is required for deep penetration that can lead to severe infection and death. Being clubbed is similar to being attacked with a knife. Similarly. throat). The latter may seem harsh. and in more recent years have manoeuvred my way out of a couple of situations that could easily have become ugly if I had panicked or overreacted. and this kind of real
. More important. but this cannot work with a knife. pull or twist the blade back to sever your ﬁngers as you try to hold their attacking arm. but a cut throat to cripple your attacker is a very poor trade indeed! In addition. A broken arm can be survived if it means you take out the attacker. but a cut to an artery can cause you to go into shock or bleed to death in a very short period of time. I am happy to say that I have not had to ﬁght anyone. In unarmed self-defence you might be able to accept a blow from the ﬁst to the gut in order to strike a more vital area. bump (strike the arm holding the knife in the joints. I had some relevant experiences in my younger days. and many are prepared to fold at the elbow. although it is marginally easier to defend against someone using a blunt impact weapon if you have any skill at all. and attack vital points (eyes. you need to have excellent martial skills and practise against the common ways of swinging and wielding a knife or club to have any hope of being able to do so on the street. but it is still risky business. away from you—to cause pain and. as very little body force is necessary to inﬂict deep cuts with a sharp knife. it is essential to remember in all aspects of such training that the person holding the weapon—not the weapon itself—is your real concern. and having also gotten married and stopped spending my free time in bars. However. As with any aspect of self-defence. Quite often the sudden appearance of a weapon will prove distracting to the point where the attacker can kick or strike you with his free limbs and then use his weapon at his leisure.94
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To summarise Erle’s approach to knife defence (and I do recommend his videos on the topic): evade (get out of the way). In addition. as even a small cut to an artery can cause death in minutes from bleeding or shock. most techniques in unarmed martial arts require great skill to have any success of working. etc.

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violence tends to spring out of nowhere. as it requires one-on-one coaching or very small groups. with or without body armour. a grabber. Charles E. His Book of Five Rings (from The Martial Artist’s Book of Five Rings. …If you do not develop this attitude. However. there has to be a spirit of cooperation. What you think is effective may in fact be ineffective because of the way in which the enemy is “feeling” at that particular moment. I would like to quote the words of Miyamoto Musashi. You must be ﬂexible and have no particular liking for any particular set of techniques. There are too many variations in attacks from the enemy.” Especially if that teacher claims to be teaching ﬁghting or self-defence methods that are guaranteed to work under all conditions. There is a lot of truth to the statement: “A teacher who doesn’t have experience in real world violence is next to worthless. I will state that it is not possible to learn self-defence or combative skills that might work against a skilled or determined attacker without controlled contact and some form of spontaneous unrehearsed attacks. Your attitude must be such that you can shift into any other mode of combat without having to make a conscious decision.”
. the famous mediaeval Japanese swordsman. as much of his advice is still relevant to the study of any effective combative art: “You cannot take a certain attitude and depend on it entirely. and against any opponent. Having this kind of training environment is difﬁcult. and a willingness by both the attacker and the defender to escalate the “violence” only as much as each participant can manage at a given time in their development. what are you doing there in the ﬁrst place? Combat ﬁghting is not done for fun. Unfortunately. Even in practice sessions you must have the attitude of going in for the kill. Kaufman. you can also argue that not having been in a serious ﬁght since I started to achieve some skill shows that I have achieved some maturity and the ability to manoeuvre potentially bad situations into ones that were resolved without violence. a thrower. 1995) is a martial primer that is worth owning and rereading. who learned the hard way by surviving dozens of ﬁghts in which his opponents were often killed. albeit in a controlled manner. Tuttle Publishers. and having some idea of how to deal with a variety of styles of attack: a puncher. or any combination thereof. even though this kind of training is not done cooperatively! Finally. as translated by Stephen F. being able to neutralise and yield as you counter-attack. In other words. you cannot always avoid violence by minding your own business. Isn’t one of the worthiest goals of martial arts training to transcend the need to come to blows? Getting the most out of bagua as a martial system relies on many training methods to develop good basic combative skills—knowing how to close the distance between you and the other. At the risk of being repetitive and pedantic.

and the few experienced martial artists who studied with him when he went public in Beijing at the turn of the 20th century. In this chapter I would like to touch on some of the contentious topics that are frequently raised when experienced practitioners get together to argue in a friendly. without worrying too much about the depth of their own understanding. more experienced students may be surprised to learn that there is as much difference of opinion about almost any bagua-related issue as there are people talking about that subject! One way to experience this is to visit any of internal arts internet discussion boards. In the same way. if not better. of each. manner. and offer bagua weapons forms using the sai and shinai to prove it! I have visited sites which promise you can learn the essence of the
. there are the countless kung-fu and karate “masters” who have learned a little bagua and are happy to teach it as a sideline. much less what they are passing on to beginners. The inheritors of the styles developed by those students state or imply that their version is at least as good. of course. both good and bad.Chapter Six
Controversial Issues
Many beginners come to a bagua class thinking that there is only one form of that discipline instead of two main approaches—Wu-tang and Er-mei—as well as countless variations. Tung Hai Ch’uan. Then. although the level of sophistication in the discussions is usually on par with that generated in a redneck bar on Saturday night. or a schoolyard between adolescents.
THOUGHTS ON LINEAGE
As I said before. I would imagine that the staff of these modern facilities also feel that what they teach is equal or superior to what is being taught by the traditionalists. the history of modern bagua really begins with only one teacher. than that of those who have learned and taught the modern wu-shu bagua forms invented by the Sports Committees of the various Chinese government-sponsored athletic colleges. I have seen websites and advertising where earnest young men in aikido or karate outﬁts promise to teach you bagua as it was originally created. or not so friendly.

… A cynic might think that the art has changed a great deal since its origins in the mid-19th century. In the same way. Nebraska.. Sadly. a master may come from a traditional school. or both. although.
. The best among the students was then selected to be the next lineage holder after the master passed away. too much change can also cause problems. I wish I was making this all up. a long and prestigious lineage cannot guarantee that a particular teacher will automatically be as great as those who preceded him or her. Otherwise. or other martial arts master. I don’t think that there is any way around the necessity for change in even the best system of forms and training methods.g. In traditional schools the master was very selective of his students. You should never assume that a teacher is less competent on any level because you have never heard of them or their teachers. He then became an “inner door disciple” and was shown most of the training secrets. and some for the worse (e. He usually had only a few. and they were recommended by a close friend. it becomes a museum piece with relevance only to academics and those obsessed with the past. a large part of the historical difference between traditional and modern bagua is the relationship between the student and the teacher. There are always otherwise reputable teachers in China who are not in the least bit shy in handing out certiﬁcates to any foreigner who comes with enough money and an introduction from someone they know overseas. or the members have bought a certiﬁcate by sending in the required membership fee or visiting a famous master for a week or two in China. I have been creative in small ways in my own teaching. we understand the human physiology much better than before. He was shown all of the style’s secret training techniques.CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
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art in seven days and another web page in which a young instructor wrote that the name of our art came from the war cry “BAGUA” the founder used to shout in battle. My only problem with creativity is when some teachers refuse to acknowledge that they have been creative. in terms of how to train safely and get the most out of the human potential).. To remain a viable art—and not just a museum piece—any style of bagua must evolve to remain relevant to modern students. In fact. Leaving aside the tricky issue of deciphering lineage and deciding who has the real goods from a technical and historical perspective. as my skills have evolved in what I practise and teach. or modern one. and vice versa.g. just because an organisation is large and has a famous teacher as a ﬁgurehead will not guarantee competent instruction in any of the member schools. Similarly. and some of that change has been for the better (e. In this regard. Ontario or in Twin Farts. modern bagua organisations are sometimes shams in the sense that they exist only on paper. effective self-defense skills are replaced by highly gymnastic crowd-pleasing movements as a way of using the forms for competition). and I do think that it is important to leave a legacy for future generations that has some continuity with the past. The prospective student had to undergo the bashi ceremony of swearing allegiance to his master. family member. and attribute their curriculum to mysterious Chinese gentlemen who happened to live next door in Vanier. I have not consciously changed the forms that I learned from Erle Montague.

They look at me like I am an old relic (I guess I am in some ways) when I harp on the subject. and teaching skills of the person you plan to learn bagua from are even more important than how skilful his teacher was and who in the past had taught him. I would suspect that the history of bagua is full of myths and personal agendas. “Yes. All fellow students were treated like brothers. in a modern or non-traditional setting. whose genius lay in his reputed ability to get experienced martial experts from diverse styles to incorporate their strengths—but not their weaknesses—into the bagua he taught each of them. Finding the original method is highly unlikely. By contrast. so what?” Honesty isn’t everything. “Being a man” has gone out of fashion. There is no implied student-teacher loyalty in either direction. martial lineage is important. while the non-traditionalists can be too quick to throw out whatever doesn’t appeal to them and change forms and methods for all the wrong reasons. it has no legitimacy. I just wish that innovative teachers would have the courage to come out and say.… It is important to remember that modern experts are often bringing aspects of their other ﬁghting arts to whatever they teach. Both approaches have their merit in empirical values. both with yourself and with others. It is easy to be too humble. but it is one of the few ethics that are essential for day-to-day integrity. In addition.98
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These disciples typically took care of all the master’s needs and treated him like a father. but I tell my two sons that you cannot have that elusive manna without maintaining honesty in your everyday life. but the ethics.
. so that the information is rarely purely from a bagua perspective. Both approaches are also easy to overdo—the traditionalists become obsessed with historical accuracy over practicality. it can be difﬁcult to ﬁnd instructors who are better than you in ways that go beyond the stylistic differences meaningless at an internal level. the teacher is willing to accept any student who walks in the door and is willing to pay the required monthly fee. I can’t help but feel that one approach will appeal to those who crave authority and want to feel connected to something venerable. And. It was often not an exaggeration to think of them as being adopted members of an extended family. and it can sometimes be used as a weapon. In the end. many practitioners and instructors take the attitude that unless they remain bound by whatever they have learned from their instructor. and the training is softened to meet the student’s needs and to retain students. I invented this. this is certainly going with the experience and attitude of the founder of this discipline. while the other to those who are more independent and value initiative and innovation. Having trained in variations of both styles of school. ﬁnding a good teacher with access to one of the better inheritances and variations of this discipline is both possible and crucial if you want to have some hope of developing even a pale reﬂection of the original art. Conversely. individual abilities. however. And failing to learn from your own experiments and insights is as ridiculous as assuming that everything you invent is gold! To return to the original topic.

I have other beginners drop out after a few weeks because they found that bagua in general was too hard on their backs and shoulders as well. the reputation of the early masters was not built on healing people. it is quite possible that those who followed Master Tung added traditional Chinese self-healing exercises and Taoist meditative knowledge. Because of the mystical nonsense that has been added to baguazhang from a variety of external sources. this is not the case. gained elsewhere. there seem to be two major camps—those who believe that bagua is really a Taoist form of moving meditation. to what they had learned from Tung Hai Ch’uan in an effort to make the art more complete. The Slip Step seems to be the hardest to do safely. In the long run. After all. Conversely. because of the New Age veneer on many of the North American variations of bagua. You cannot learn ﬁghting by osmosis. and very little was put down in writing until the 1930s. I have seen no evidence in almost fourteen years of practice and teaching to contradict my impression that the health aspect of bagua is anything but a relatively modern overlay on the art. so to speak). many students will assume that practising should make you a superhuman of some kind and guarantee you don’t get colds or suffer injuries. students who practise the healing part regularly may ﬁnd that they learn the self-defence stuff more efﬁciently than those who approach the martial side of bagua without an inner peace of some kind and an understanding of the basic concepts of moving meditatively. even the word Qigong only came into popular usage in China in the early 1960s. it bears repeating that it will not bring signiﬁcant self-defence skills unless you learn and practise that side of the art with a competent teacher for several years. and sometimes even if you do. In any case.
. In particular. And it sounds as if some of their personalities were rather harsh as well.CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
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IS BAGUA A HEALING ART OR A MARTIAL ART?
As with the previous discussion. but on defeating them. and when it was often of most use to those already “in the know” (martial short hand. a good style of baguazhang will make you a better and healthier person. Perhaps. as they were living in a very different age and society. and it can heal just about anything if the practitioner has enough faith. Certainly. However. Realistically. and those who feel that it was developed as a martial art and should be trained with that in mind. Unfortunately. things went back to normal. when Sun Lu Tang became the ﬁrst to write authoritatively about bagua and the other internal arts. On the other hand. Two of my best taiji students started studying bagua with me. if half of the stories are true. However. it is also important to remember that we shouldn’t judge them from a modern “enlightened” perspective. Once they stopped. there tends to be an expectation in both students and teachers that regular practice will somehow eliminate all physical ills and confer immunity to illness and general physical wear and tear. but had to stop because their knees were killing them after a few months. The older generation of teachers were too secretive. circle walking is often a killer on the knees if you don’t get the walking just right. For example. knee damage or chronic inﬂammation has ended or limited the careers of many internal arts practitioners. I don’t think we will ever know for sure.

If you can only do one. some good teachers say. which would seem to contradict that the waist and weight changes must lead the hands. that the hands must pull the body into position.e. and these can positively affect your general health—but common sense should tell you that you remain mortal no matter how skilful you are at any aspect of baguazhang. and not neglect getting warmed up and stretched (the two activities are not the same) before doing the more demanding forms.
WHAT LEADS: THE HANDS OR THE WAIST?
Some good bagua styles seem to advocate that the hands must lead the weight of the body. the ﬁrst form you learn uses the waist to lead the hands. while our approach says that the hands lead. the spine whipping forward and back). It makes sense to me to be able to use this skill as appropriate in a martial situation. As in many things. Practising martial arts can lead to a lot of unavoidable wear and tear. and this is most evident in expressions of horizontal power (i.. “Why am I doing this?” I have arthritis in both elbows from being a training partner for too many students who didn’t have the control that prevents needless damage. and I think to myself. It is like choosing whether to always make a ﬁst or an open hand. including having tried to do high kicks for years and the stamping in some of the forms I have practised. and the second (which is faster and more vigorous) has the hands leading the body. and I now understand why instructors traditionally preferred to not train with the beginner and intermediate students. it takes longer to recover from even minor injuries. there are no easy answers. There are frequent references to the desirability of this in other internal arts I have seen or practised. The overall truth is probably that being relaxed and relatively calm can certainly improve your emotional life. it should be simultaneous.. twisting from side to side). There is a price for practising martial arts for years or decades—injuries. so all we can hope is to avoid major injury. and less useful if you are using vertical power (i. Sadly. There is also a certain amount of wear and tear to be expected from training. I ﬁnd in my own practice and teaching that the hands will often feel as if they are pulling the rest of me into the target. rather than having to do only one or the other. To confuse the issue. and I have also read that in the oldest version of the Chen Style. rather categorically. There are many days when everything aches in my middle-aged carcass. but the waist must move to initiate the hand work—in other words. those are exactly the students who need to feel the teacher’s skill and power the most. As you get older.100
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It is important to practise regularly and moderately.e. doesn’t that limit you in many ways?
. and my right hip is an osteoarthritic mess for a variety of reasons.

and to practise striking them on a willing partner. many modern teachers don’t have enough of a martial base of any kind to be able to understand just how useful a push can be—and how limiting if that is all you can do.CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
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WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PUSHING?
Bagua was invented at a time in Chinese history (late 19th century) in which your opponent. My instructor on the subject. whether a soldier or a brigand. if you struck a non-expert. Having said this. even if you hadn’t done them any real physical harm—and probably would. A good push can uproot and imbalance or topple an unstable opponent. you were less likely to be attacked (except by another expert who would presumably have developed the skills necessary to counteract yours). or blood and nervous systems—you don’t want to fool around with these areas in an irre-
. and everyone knew about it. In training. or applying pressure to (“sealing”) these points often lies in affecting arterial blood ﬂow. Similarly.
It is a legitimate aspect of learning the traditional internal martial arts. such theoretical knowledge is useless unless you can keep the attacker from harming you ﬁrst—that is. but was customary taught only to those long-term students who were trusted the most. leaving them stunned and vulnerable to follow-up techniques. dislocating bones. and traumatising major nerves. then they would expect to develop severe side effects. if you were a dim-mak expert. Unfortunately. then it would be surprising if you didn’t feel a little nervous when hit or three weeks after the fact. the value of striking. at least on rare occasion. many of the points work so well because attacking them also affects joints. Pushing with the hands becomes an essential aspect of grappling skills. In fact. I also think that there may well be more to this than meets the eye. organs. In other words. A good push can send someone ﬂying and twisting either upwards or downwards. Punching or striking armour won’t do as much good as using whole body skills to immobilise or throw an opponent protected in this way. On a pragmatic level. might be wearing leather or metal armour of some type. For example. to memorise a number of acupuncture points. twisting. a good push can be a very useful martial tool if you do so with the whole body and not just with the arms or chest. It came about primarily to make some of the training methods a little safer for daily practice.
DIM-MAK
Tsien-hueh. as dim-mak is often called. Erle Montague. In the old days. It can be percussive and shake or jar the person being pushed in that manner. refers to the martial use of the acupuncture points to cause temporary or permanent damage to the Qi ﬂow and to the body. often points out that it is useless to attend seminars on death-point striking. tearing muscles and ligaments. pushing can be somewhat safer for the students than striking and grappling. you have to know how to ﬁght. However. No one on the street would stand around and let you hit them the way you probably practise in a martial school setting. if you are convinced that I will make your left earlobe fall off three weeks after touching or hitting you on the right nipple.

By the way. and is. I think the idea of being able to defend yourself at a distance is very seductive to the types of student that are often attracted to bagua and to the internal arts in general … until they
. meeting. I have not seen any real evidence that kong-jing (“empty” force) or the ability to project Qi from a distance to affect an aggressor are anything other than an empty farce in martial terms. Watch any Ultimate Fighting Match or mixed martial arts sporting match. If you train to automatically attack lethal points—which are often over internal organs that are rarely easy to rupture. or near the eyes—it would be astounding if you didn’t reﬂexively overreact when frightened. hitting someone in a classroom setting is not the same as hitting them if they are attacking or defending with skill and aggression. and it is possible that some talented qigong doctors can emit Qi from their hands for healing. after all of these years of training. an expert using his Qi defensively must still be able to do everything else to keep an attacker from making contact with and hurting him before Qi can be applied. but you should think of it as being one aspect of your higher martial education—not the be-all and end-all of your training. Erle Montague has gone out of his way to help debunk the myths and demonstrate how important it is to not practise such tactics in a haphazard manner.102
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sponsible manner. but their hands have to be very close to the acupuncture points they are trying to affect. and the use of Qi cultivation in the internal arts—no matter how you deﬁne and explore such knowledge—should promote good health. in regards to dim-mak. or in the throat. and a number of internet “masters” seem to be charging and earning large amounts of money from those who buy their books and videos and attend workshops on this subject. and you will see ﬁghters strike and be struck on supposedly vulnerable point after point without even looking crabby about it! So. if well trained at the methods but not in self-control. unlike many of those who have produced videos and books in the English language on point striking and dim-mak concepts. Self-defence skills are an essential aspect of the traditional Chinese internal arts—but there is more to those arts than martial skill. Conversely. or observing a variety of Chinese martial arts experts. boys and girls. is a stupid thing to do if you are a student—and irresponsible if you are a teacher! While such martial skills may have been necessary when created in lawless times. Also. Striking the many points that are particularly vulnerable to knockout. Dim-mak is a fascinating and legitimate aspect of the traditional internal arts. or can cause death in a training setting. many people continue to believe in it. However. having said that. martially. Of course. they have little place in modern life except as a curiosity. a traditional aspect of the internal arts. It is also true that projecting Qi in various ways is considered legitimate in Traditional Chinese Medicine. even though they are rarely willing to teach it. and it is still possible to ﬁnd modern teachers who know something about that aspect. a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. life is too short to waste it developing knowledge that is the unarmed equivalent of nuclear weapons. not destroy it.
“EMPTY” FORCE
There is grudging admittance that dim-mak was. wishful thinking aside. And. causing peritonitis.

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ﬁnd out that hard work. if I tell my students that I will be able to attract them towards me with the Qi in my hand. it will work with a signiﬁcant proportion of them. In fact. For example. If I then explain that it is not really Qi but just their subconscious co-operation (i. It is easy to be a big ﬁsh in a small pond if the people we teach have never seen the ocean and sharks. and what a cynic might call stage magic. Another ran up the wall of a narrow alley in two bounds after a running start. Tung Hai Ch’uan was reputed to have this kind of skill. For him. sweat. took a step on the opposite wall then twisted back. were practising extreme “plyometrics”—as in hopping one-legged up all the bleachers at a soccer stadium as a warm-up for their runs through Paris. it is also true that a traditionalist would not argue with such a modern interpretation of Qi. I also think that many of the martial arts “hype masters” do actually start to believe their own stories after having repeated them often enough to audiences that swallow the stories or have never seen better. one of them jumped up from a stationary start and landed safely balanced on top of a high chain link fence. move silently and swiftly as if he had teleported himself from one spot to another. and ended his mad climb on a roof. they called their sport free-running which about sums up the madness of running over cars to cross streets and along narrow railings high above street level. At one point in the documentary. I have to rethink my complete cynicism. it is even worse when the instructor claims to teach martial techniques which only work on a student who is subconsciously co-operating with their teacher. Misplaced faith is bad enough when limited to solo practice. this would only be an example of how one person’s stronger Qi can inﬂuence or defeat the weaker Qi of another person. etc. As I was ﬁnishing the edit for this book I started seeing a new car commercial. most of whom were experienced break dancers or extreme skate boarders who had decided that it was more challenging to do it at a run and without the use of wheels. it will still work on a signiﬁcant proportion of the students—even though their intellectual mind knows that it is a trick. having just seen a television documentary about a group of French extreme sports fanatics in Paris whose idea of a good time is running along fences and rooftops at top speed. And a lie repeated often enough begins to sound like the truth!
“LIGHT BODY” SKILLS
Many stories circulate about the rather fantastic abilities of internal experts of old. Most of these leave the legitimate instructors. autosuggestion) to moving my hand towards and away from them. Anyone who has seen a kung-fu movie has seen this concept taken to excess. and there are many stories about his ability to leap about like a gazelle. and one of the most common is running up walls and jumping onto rooftops. However. To make it even more confusing and interesting. to go in search of those teachers who specialise in mystery. by hovering that hand close to their chest. in which a couple of
. twisted himself around in mid-air.. The documentary showed some of their training. These young men. neo-taoism.e. and the odd bruise are the main secrets to learning how to defend yourself.

Abstinence as a way of purifying the monk or the warrior is an age-old tradition in both Eastern and Western cultures. John are examples of mediaeval attempts to unite the two concepts. and not so famous.
SEXUALITY
There is much weirdness in sexual matters in all cultures and I have met or heard of more than one bagua teacher (sometimes Chinese. the history of this kind of mutilation is quite fascinating. both Western (Italian castrati opera singers as recently as the 20th century) and Oriental (eunuchs of harem fame). there is certainly a legitimate aspect to the theories behind Taoist sexual activity from a traditional viewpoint. Oh. at least in rare individuals. from having watched too many episodes of the old kung-fu television series as children. heavy drinkers. The spirit and Qi are still vital although the body grows old. and have continued to demonstrate that interest into old age. and while I don’t want to prick anyone’s sensibilities on the subject of eunuchs. more often not) who wraps his classes in pseudo-taoism as a way to get young sexual partners. In fact. One method involved removing the penis surgically (a straw was inserted into the stump during the surgical process to keep the urethra from closing during the healing process). Many cultures. ate whatever food was put in front of them—in other words. using any method to stop ejaculation is more likely to simply cause retrograde emission. It is also relevant to point out that many of the best Chinese masters I have met were skirt chasers. concubines. heavy smokers. someone who actually tries to use one of the recommended Taoist practices for preventing ejaculation is liable to only end up thinking he hasn’t ejaculated. as I noted in an earlier chapter. If the person survived the surgery. ordinary human beings. The Knights Templar. masters have been fond of female company. and by the way. have used castration in different forms for different cultural ends. So. in which the sperm is released. warts and all. but—caveat emptor (translation: “let the horny beware!”)—I also think that the old Chinese approach to preventing or limiting male ejaculation to preserve vital ﬂuids and energies may often have had something to do with elderly rich men trying to satisfy the needs of a household with several wives. the Knights of St. many famous. then maybe the Chinese historical reports of lightness skill may not be as fanciful as we might otherwise think. and attractive female maids! Anatomically. though. as he is still “losing Qi” when he urinates after having engaged in retrograde emission. but forced backwards into the bladder instead of being ejected immediately in the normal manner. Sufﬁce it to say that there were different forms of castration used to produce different kinds of eunuchs. So. and it is rather amazing to watch them in action. This agenda also often gets carried to ridiculous extremes by those with a sexual/emotional axe to grind.104
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these free-runners are shown hurtling along beside the Scion car being advertised. Too many Western students of the Chinese internal arts are looking for the archetypal master. there are many stories about Tung Hai Ch’uan having been a eunuch. his hormones and physical appearance would
. To be fair. The human body is capable of extremes. if this kind of physical prowess is possible today.

There is real magic in competent instruction and diligent practice over the long term. this is partly a reﬂection of the fact that you will have improved your health and also achieved real selfdefence skills.CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
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remain intact.
CROSS-TRAINING
As the years and the decades roll by. as well as practising on his or her own for many years. and it should tell you something about human nature and desperation that made parents take their sons to have the procedure done. and rarely. an obsession. By middle age. Assuming that you have shown some aptitude and have practised regularly. your priorities and interests will change. And there were still adult volunteers. We all want miracles—even those who seem the most cynical want to feel as if they are tapping into something special.g. especially when taken out of the social and historical context in which they ﬁrst arose. but it is hardly a miracle cure for all of our physical and emotional problems. the martial skills can only be purchased through a credit card issued by the Bank of Blood. However. The other methods involved crushing the testicles or removing them surgically. You have come to terms with both your skills and limitations as a practitioner. time and experience also play an essential part in whether or not you are still reacting like a child to all of life’s tribulations by the time you are middle-aged. even if it was possible. and Tears. learning self-defence skills. as being ﬁxed was the only way to ensure attaining some positions in Chinese government service. I wouldn’t want to stick my hand down in his pants to investigate the state of his genitalia. get the opportunity to study anything other than his system. if anything. Sweat. or becoming a better ﬁghter) will be less important at the age 40 or 50. developing physical skill. and learned to value your daily training for its own sake. It is also always a good idea to introduce common sense when faced with extreme views on human sexuality. was done to Tung Hai Ch’uan and. All methods had a high death rate. and this would affect hormonal production and physique. In particular. a martial arts professional in China would train regularly with a competent teacher. One of the best pieces of advice I have ever had from Erle is “Do your internal art to live well. I have no idea what. if ever. It is very hard to come to terms with the issue of skill and wisdom coming only through long-term effort. your skills should have reached the point that the arts are no longer a major focus. Of course. if half the stories are true about his martial abilities. but simply an important aspect of your daily life. I think it is also fair to say that studying any competent internal art with diligence can increase the pace at which one grows up. and not just as a vehicle for self-improvement or good health. those who earned a living as body or convoy guards might garner the hard way considerable experience with other ﬁghting styles and incorporate aspects of what they survived into their own prac-
. What was important at the age 25 in terms of your internal arts (e. don’t live to do your internal art!” In the good old days. Coming to terms with this is also part and parcel of the maturing process as a practitioner.. so they could get the employment that required castration.

it can be problematic to sort the wheat from the chaff. or learned Western boxing skills. sometimes padded with old mattresses. The same is also true of those taiji schools where the students have learned to absorb impact by allowing themselves to be hurled into walls. While I am sure that some of these innovators are doing their best and may even have something to offer to beginners. usually the students who are most keen to cross-train prematurely tend to focus on how the new art(s) are similar to what they already know. being hit with some power. In any case. it is essential to study arts that have some form of body contact. and lack the aptitude to absorb not only the similarities. for starting to develop skills that would be useful against a real attack by someone who has some experience and skill at real ﬁghting. Particularly. I think it is important for the serious martial student to learn the basics of both stand-up ﬁghting and ground ﬁghting in the early stages of training. add a slow taiji form. or wu-shu style bagua form. or qigong to their bloated curriculums! It is quite depressing to surf the net and see website after website promoting these new styles to the general martial public. albeit in controlled manner. Perhaps. It is not that these arts are superior to the traditional arts. except under rare circumstances. You have to learn to relax as much as necessary to avoid injury. Unfortunately. Cross-training when you have a solid foundation in one art can really help the learning process in the other Chinese internal and external arts. There are not too many modern Sun Lu Tangs or Chen Pan Lings.106
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tice. In modern times. From my limited experience. part of the problem with the reputation of cross-training lies in the very glut of “young masters” who study one or two years each of a variety of hard styles and then. For example. as opposed to trying to analyse how the new system or teacher does things differently. there is no reason to completely focus on any one range of ﬁghting to the exclusion of the others. the feel of being grappled at close quarters) with the minimum of tension. sometimes not. I recommend spending proportionately more time on stand-up ﬁghting skills if your concern is more self-defence rather than sport. Sadly. However. shuai-jiao or Chinese wrestling. but we should not assume that people with martial genius don’t exist anymore. but the differences between the arts they are learning. it has been my experience that those modern internal arts teachers who actually have some real combat skills have either done judo or Western wrestling. it is just that the serious student will learn how to take body contact and physical abuse (falling. And. After students are proﬁcient with basic stand up and ground ﬁghting techniques. or are creating a new style to make money or boost their egos. as sometimes the differences are subtle. being thrown. either in-depth or superﬁcially. it was not acceptable. covering the foundations of both. as they move into middle age. for many purposes. some martial artists have spent much time and effort studying a variety of systems. With a coherent system. to train with several teachers. the latter category of teacher or practitioner usually doesn’t spend enough time at any of the secondary arts to really understand how they are different from what has already been learned. I am equally sure that even more are only fooling themselves and their own students with their abilities. In
. most modern practitioners don’t have a solid foundation before they go off studying other approaches.

True experiential learning of any mind/body discipline is ﬁrst a process of accumulation. hsing-i and bagua. The average “generalist” of this kind is only fooling himself and his students by teaching one or two main styles and a smattering of forms or methods from the other arts. or come out and say that they are masters of many styles. and liu he ba fa. seems like a paradox. If you look carefully at any combat art or sport (the ones which actually involve some form of non-cooperative contact ﬁghting). a few geniuses can skip stage one and arrive at the ﬁnal stage. How long can one realistically hope to apply ground ﬁghting techniques? It will depend on the person. whose business card or ﬂyers list him or her as a master of wing-chun. shaolin. how many competitive boxers do you see past age 30? Not many! Understanding a principle and knowing how to ﬁght are not the same. If you go to judo tournaments. It has been an oftentimes lonely and frustrating journey for various reasons. but in the seniors categories.CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
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particular. but I have met very few in almost 30 years of doing martial arts. hsing-i. and it is—the internal arts are full of them. The late Jou Tsung Hwa said that you have to be your own teacher. as well as qigong of different types. The longer I teach and train. or taiji master alive will fare no better on the ground than a complete beginner if they haven’t actually practised ground ﬁghting. It seems to me that it eventually becomes essential for a serious student of any good approach to the internal arts to ﬁnd a “retirement package”—as the desire to experience and do everything is as counterproductive in the long run as being too narrow in your focus and only following one approach to being internal. This. hsing-i. Chinese or otherwise. of course.The greatest bagua. but very wrong in that the average beginner has no hope of developing real skill of any kind unless he or she has competent instruction from role models who are good at both teaching and doing whatever is being taught. “If I have reached any heights in my skill. and then a process of de-cluttering and simpliﬁcation. I suppose. why practise at all? In the last ﬁfteen years. I have met a few over the years who actually are good at a variety of arts—but these are few and far between.
. I have learned and/or discarded many forms and methods from taiji. you will see older competitors—although they usually don’t compete with younger ﬁghters. One aspect of the Chinese martial arts that has always made me a little grumpy is the tendency for instructors to imply. both Chen and Yang taiji. If understanding a principle translated into actual ability. and he was very right in some ways. this means having learned how to do break falls and rolls that might actually work on surfaces other than mats or tatami. It is not uncommon to meet a teacher. IT BEARS EMPHASISING THAT YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND A STYLE BY LEARNING ONE OR TWO OF ITS FORMS. bagua. Erle has also said more than once. the truer it seems that real understanding can only come from having as wide as possible an experience of competent forms of martial art and then practising more and more of less and less. you will ﬁnd that most of the participants are young. it is only from standing on the shoulders of giants!” This is a sentiment that I now understand. On the other hand.

you will learn a great deal. Bagua is the swift fury and unpredictable tactics of light cavalry. and Taiji is a walled fortress from which the defenders make sudden sallies. you can gain a superﬁcial veneer or knowledge but will never actually learn anything in depth. and we agreed that only the best and the worst students attended a lot of workshops and did serious cross-training. I is phrased in the context of my university degree in ancient and mediaeval history:“Hsing-i is the impenetrable stability and shock of a square of heavy infantry with spears. making it a young man’s art. I would put my money on an experienced Western boxer (even an older. spending a year in one system and six months in another. It was both sadly funny and instructional to see him ﬂatten the younger and ﬁtter taiji instructors who sparred with him at the school where we trained. Finally.” He had been an amateur and professional boxer and still trained and coached young boxers.”
. if you dabble in workshops and instructors. but you also limit your potential for growth by not studying how other systems do the same thing slightly (or greatly) differently. Martial geniuses can mobilise and use effectively all of these. he and I both fall in the ﬁrst category! Here is the problem in a nutshell—if you study one art deeply. As self-defence skills go. and its only disadvantages are the stamina and conditioning required. while the average expert understands one strategy to a greater or lesser degree. Hopefully. out-of-shape exponent) who has to ﬁght any type of modern martial artist. I would recommend boxing as a great martial sport to explore. black belt or not. but the sweet science is just as profound in its principles and techniques as any of the other martial arts when it is welltaught and well-practised.108
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I was discussing this issue with a colleague the other day. here is another internal arts conundrum about the difference in the three main internal arts. If you are young and ﬁt. It has the advantage of simplicity. Years ago I was friends with a 50 year-old man who was learning taijiquan “for fun. Conversely. Boxing has had its ups and downs over the decades. Anyone who says an experienced boxer is automatically inferior to a traditional martial artist has never had the experience of being hit by one.

However. or a pair of shorter weapons. and spears. Incidentally. For this purpose bagua uses the common weapons of that era. Bagua also became famous for its use of very large weapons. When you can see the blade bending ﬂoppily as the wielder does his form. the oversized bagua “knives” (dao. They were not for duels between men on foot. two short—the sword and broadsword. It also specialised in a variety of smaller edged weapons of various shapes. long spears were designed to be used en masse to hold off groups of cavalry or masses of similarly armed men. as the skilful man with a shorter weapon. Various styles utilised extra heavy and long straight swords. broadswords. this is not my cup of tea. I am not sure that oversized weapons are ever of any real value in combat outside of their original purpose under certain battleﬁeld conditions. In fact. it is less impressive in terms of the potential martial value of the performance. They are of less use at close range. Having a weapon in one or both hands changes the ways in which you can move and necessitates
. so you could more easily get at the opponent riding the animal. and oversized chopping weapons are of limited use when ﬁghting in close quarters or in an urban setting. The movements associated with each bagua weapon help to develop the body in ways that are not often easily accomplished through empty-hand forms and exercises.Chapter Seven
Weapons Forms & Function
In the old days. developing stronger muscles) to practising with an oversized weapon of any kind. There are certain training beneﬁts (relearning the balance of a top-heavy weapon. a variety of edged and blunt impact weapons was a necessity for those with bagua skills while employed as bodyguards or as professional escorts for groups travelling between the cities. For example. has a real advantage against the fellow with the big cumbersome weapon. and two long—the staff and spear. the need to become skilful at defending against. the most famous of which were the Deer Horn Knives. It is hard to be impressed by the modern versions of these forms demonstrated with light and overly ﬂexible replicas of the original weapons. if he can get within the range of that longer weapon. as broadswords are called in Chinese) were originally meant to cut the legs out from under a horse. and using.

will be very difﬁcult and expensive. determines. but you also had to have some idea of how each of the other types of weapons you were liable to have to ﬁght against would operate in the hands of a skilled opponent. By the way. forearms and elbows. I have not had much luck buying metal weapons by mail order. Practice with metal weapons can be reserved to solo form practice.” The later are metal rods with a swivelling ring that ﬁts over your middle ﬁnger to allow you to grip and twirl these handleless ice picks. axe. This is hard enough to achieve when practising by yourself. While all
. Not just for safety but also to minimise the strain in your wrists and arms. protective gear on your hands. In addition. although it is best not to sharpen the blade—even if the quality of the blade allows for that—until you are sure you are doing everything properly and safely. Getting a well-balanced combat steel sword or broadsword. as well as a variety of weird and wonderful specialty weapons. like the famous semicircular swords and the “judge’s pens. There are a host of weapons used in solo and partner training: sword. the wooden and cheap metal weapons available today tend to splinter or break fairly easily. So. much less Deer Horn Knives. Lacrosse. double sword.110
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a heightened sense of awareness of your body and the space through which both you and the weapon(s) move. and knife. It is best to practise applications only with wooden weapons at ﬁrst.
TRADITIONAL WEAPONS TRAINING
As in all Chinese martial systems. and it can get expensive replacing broken equipment. as these are prime targets for many techniques. You rarely get what you think you are buying quality-wise from the Chinese mass-produced wu-shu weapons factories. and side to side. in the old days. spear. and limits its martial function. One of the greatest beneﬁts of training with any weapon is learning how the shape and structure of each weapon affects. staff. but these new skills become even more crucial when you are trying to be attentive of someone else who is trying to use a weapon against you. you had to not only know how to use at least one weapon in a practised and efﬁcient manner. You have to learn not only to control your body and its six directions. No easy answers once you add weaponry to the equation of developing advanced bagua martial skills. single-handed and two-handed broadsword. weapon training is an essential aspect of traditional bagua. You can also improvise more complete protective outﬁts from hockey. up and down. and BMX bicycling gear and look like an extra in a cheap rip-off of the classic Road Warrior epic as a bonus. It also doesn’t hurt to wear safety glasses. helmets. but also extend that to the weapon(s) moving forward and back. you need to spend some time holding and using a weapon to see if the balance and weight is suitable to your needs and level of expertise. Real quality replica weapons are worth the expense for the serious practitioners although you should be prepared to pay hundreds of dollars to get quality—assuming you can ﬁnd such in North America. Any solo form designed to teach the use of an edged weapon is best done with a good quality metal weapon.

and to have some comprehension of the main characteristics of usage for the others. especially those who worked as bodyguards and caravan escorts. More than one of my students have had the police arrive to question them when someone phoned in a complaint that “some crazy guy is waving a sword in the park.WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION
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weapons share similarities within their broad categories—long or short. edged or impact. It is relatively easy to achive competency with broadsword. There are different theories as to which ﬁngers should be used. I believe that it is important to develop a minimal understanding of the solo form and martial usage for at least one of the following weapons. It is also true that much of the difﬁculty in learning to hold a weapon properly comes from developing the proper grip using only the thumb and one or two ﬁngers. It is also true that all weapons are the same in the sense that they can only be properly used by a skilful practitioner whose skills have become such that he or she could literally pick up any item and use it as an improvised weapon in an emergency. especially if you plan to teach bagua at some point. Although the solo form and applications that you will be learning don’t come from Erle Montaigue. It is not easy to learn this. This is why it was the primary weapon of common soldiers in ancient Chinese armies.
THE BROADSWORD
Throughout bagua’s relatively short history. as with any of the more traditional forms. and the best way to discover what works best for you is to experiment with a variety of grips. It is very efﬁcient against a variety of other weapons. but this is not China. especially when used in conjunction with internal body mechanics. This weapon has always been a mainstay of all styles of Chinese Wu-shu (literally “war arts”).” If I may speak to my own students for a moment. Even some relatively skilful practitioners will discover that they are not as relaxed or as strong as they thought when trying to master the correct grip with the required ﬂexibility of wrist and elbow. but from what I have seen of modern bagua—what I teach is pretty good func-
. the broadsword was the weapon of choice of many practitioners. The complexity is in having a grip ﬂexible enough to allow you to manipulate the weapon easily while still retaining the strength to absorb an impact without losing your grip on the weapon. they are based on traditional sets that have been modiﬁed according to my understanding of broadsword use. If you are planning to practise in the park or your backyard. I make no pretensions that I can provide expert weapon training. These forms need lots of space for practice—an important consideration. and pedestrians are not used to the sight of ﬂailing swords the way they are in Shanghai or Beijing. There is literally no point in learning the weapon if you cannot practise it for lack of indoor training space—remember winter! Practising in a park is an option. each has special attributes and limitations that you must get accustomed to. One of the hardest skills to learn is how to hold each weapon with just the right amount of power and muscular force. and you won’t if you never train with a partner and actually practise a variety of applications with him or her. you will need a fair bit of privacy.

and generate short power in a speciﬁc manner. and fun. as a last resort. is a process of learning how to efﬁciently employ the factors of distance and angle. Bagua ﬁghters were renowned for their skill at applying close quarter ﬁghting tactics. try to ﬁnd an instructor who actually knows what they are doing. Training Tips: • One of the hardest things to get used to in the solo form is the use of the wrist and the elbow to help generate the circles created by coordinating footwork with the use of the waist. or even the body of the wielder can be pressed against the dull side at times to assist in blocking or deﬂecting actions and to express whole body power at close range. the palm. deﬂected. so to speak. or. Using the broadsword is no different. torso. Many different aspects of your bare hand training will become clearer as you seek to apply the principles of bagua to this weapon. it is essential to remember that one of the key concepts is disarming your opponent. and its characteristics suit my build. remember to use the palm—not the ﬁngers—and to keep your ﬁnger tips where they belong on your fingers. • When connecting to the attacker’s weapon. you must immediately try to cut the hand or arm controlling it before trying to ﬁnish off the attacker with a cut to the head. • When bracing the weapon. To be able to do this. applying the right amount of pressure to the opponent’s blade with yours and be aware of the other fellow’s hilt if
.112
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tionally. rewarding. I am quite fond of this form. you have to be sensitive. Do not allow them to protrude where an opportunistic attacker might be tempted to slice them off with a sudden change of direction of his weapon’s edge. doesn’t take too much space to perform (compared to the other traditional weapon forms). blocked the attacker’s weapon. Because the broadsword is a single-edged weapon. remember that the guard is a useful tool for knocking the attacker’s weapon out of range for a quick counter-attack of your own. and the practitioner usually keeps the blade in front of the body to protect himself. Once you have parried. A slicing weapon. • In training applications. especially if the opponent is attempting to use the same tactics. If you are studying bagua elsewhere and can only learn this weapon. its comparative weight and the somewhat top-heavy design of the blade makes it an excellent weapon only for someone with the size and strength to wield it—a lumberjack’s axe with a three foot razor edge. forearm. as it is not overly complicated. the movements of the broadsword are best suited to a heavier or taller practitioner although anyone—no matter what their relative size—can beneﬁt. Like hsing-i. if you are planning a career as a caravan guard. The motions are often short and quick. or vital points. and I don’t just mean knocking the weapon out of his hand although that is a legitimate application whenever possible. However. bagua included. Even a marginal understanding of combative function will help make your solo form work challenging. The study of any competent traditional internal style. I suggest you start searching for a more competent weapon’s master than me! The broadsword is primarily used at medium and short range against a variety of weapons.

This solo set is done in a circular pattern and has a limited number of techniques. however. Training methods include striking various objects. and the amount of ﬂoor space that it takes to practise. I make no pretensions that I can provide expert weapon training. elbow. As with the broadsword. to learn how to generate power from relatively short distances without having the reverberations rebound into your own hands. This is one way to learn to really relax the shoulder. You must learn to use the weight of the sabre. twisting. doing a somersault over the staff). Doing a well-structured broadsword form properly is like being inside a steel cage or at the centre of a hurricane. Some styles of bagua also use.g. When I have asked him in recent years. the physical complexity of some of the moves (e.. wide-swinging tactics of this weapon should have elegance and smoothness. and longer is not necessarily better. The bagua staff can vary in length although the shortest (for indoor practice) should be determined by placing one end of the staff on the ﬂoor and measuring to the height of your eyebrows. so it is more suitable for use as an introduction to this weapon. much less teaching this form. as well as martial effectiveness in the use of angles around the body.WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION
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you are at close range. Getting smashed in the face by the butt end of the handle of his sword or broadsword would be very distracting! • Practising competently should teach you about extending your reach and force to the tip and the edge of the weapon. Although the solo form and applications I teach to my more experienced bagua students don’t come from Erle Montaigue. but it is often a rather hard way of learning to do so. he told me that very few WTBA members were still practising. what I teach is not too bad in martial function. I have seen one or two forms demonstrated in North America that seem to be shortened versions of the same set. Many of the techniques for this long weapon are adaptable to those used with a spear. sticking and striking. it is a little safer to do so when you ﬁrst start exploring weapons. you are liable to fall over from your misguided momentum if your stroke falls on emptiness (i. and wrist. not depend on it to power your stroke.
THE LONG STAFF
The bagua solo staff form that Erle used to teach is a very difﬁcult one to practise due to the extraordinary number of techniques.e. as it is done in straight lines. including your partner’s staff. it should be proportional to your height. a somewhat shorter staff that had a spearhead at each end. It should not be too much longer than eight feet. and 3/4 to an inch in diameter. Have you ﬁgured out this bagua conundrum yet—ﬁnding triangles in circles and the circles in triangles? • If you don’t keep your balance when advancing. your target had the skill to move at the last moment). • The bold. as it usually has only one sharp edge.. The strikes are best thought of as chopping slices. they are based on traditional bagua staff sets that have been modiﬁed according to my understanding of this weapon.
. The whip-like force generated in many of the sweeping strikes is expressed through the forward end of the staff in blocking. or used. For outside usage. and. Every stroke should cut cleanly along one of the eight cardinal directions in the triangles that ﬁll your circle.

• There are swinging movements in which both hands are held quite close together at one end of the staff and. The wrist and shoulder may add to this force. Functionally.
DOUBLE SWORD FORM
This form was the ﬁrst of Erle’s bagua weapon forms that I learned back in the early nineties. if demanding set. If you were doing this with a spear. or up and down are controlled by the rear hand. while this can increase your reach suddenly to confound an opponent. or be used to change the direction subtly if the stroke is used as a defence and followed by a thrusting action. using two edged weapons is much harder than it looks. There is a tendency not to pay enough attention to one sword while wielding the other. although there are postures that use the stick with the hands positioned so that you have three equal lengths with your two hands as the dividing points.114
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The staff moves through diagonal planes around the practitioner to strike and to intimidate. assists in snatching back your weapon if the opponent is able to grab the shaft. Twisting in the opposite direction. the sharp metal of the edges of the spearhead would sever or injure the hand(s) trying to grapple or immobilise your weapon. stick. • Some of the thrusting actions are done with a screwing action forward and back. you should ﬁnd that there is a shaking quality to the business end of a thrust or swing. as you retract a thrust. and is a wave-like momentum developed by the practitioner’s lower back. it also means that your weapon will take longer to retrieve to a more secure grip. and I gather that not many members of the WTBA practise it anymore—which is a shame. the shock of being struck by the end of a hardwood or waxwood staff is nothing that can be ignored. Striking force is generated near the end of each posture. Even without a metal spearhead. the changes of the circular solo set must be done on both sides of the body. as such defensive moves are frequent and can vary from blocking an overhand strike down to your head to setting up a throw if your weapon is grabbed with two hands by an unwary opponent. as well as to move the forward end of the staff to parry. This makes for a very long sequence indeed. and waist. and that this was considered a good sign among practitioners. Training Tips: • The staff is usually held with at least half of the shaft ahead of the lead hand. and circle in defence and attack. It is a lovely. and the forward wrist is used to direct the weapon. • Assuming that your weapon is long enough and made from good quality wood. Twisting it forward increases penetration. the staff is often taken over the head. and this is an essential aspect of traditional staff and spear work. Thrusting attacks using the tip of the staff move ﬁercely along a single line. A few cuts and scrapes
. As you use a short straight sword in each hand. Movements to the left and right. spine. • Unlike the edged weapons.

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from a metal sword from carelessness while practising on your own can soon set you straight in solo practise, but it takes longer to learn about in applications. When gripping each sword, one must learn to do so gently but ﬁrmly with two ﬁngers and the thumb, not all ﬁve ﬁngers as this lessens the ability to twirl the swords with the wrists. Done properly, these twirling actions are not for the show, but serve speciﬁc martial purposes, such as diverting an intercepted attack downwards and then twirling the blades to effect a counter-cut immediately after. The internal energy may be manifested in the sword as a quivering of the blade during fa-jing movements, or as a sharp penetrating movement generated by the spine and legs. The jian, whether long or relatively short, as in this case (each blade should be 26–30 inches in length, depending on your relative height), is a double-edged blade that literally cuts both ways, and is as effective on the backstroke as on the advance. The footwork is nimble and lively, and half of the use of a straight sword of any length is learning to sidestep and evade attacks as much as parry or block them. The last tactic is reserved for emergencies and done with the thicker bottom third of the blade. The jian is often compared to a Chinese dragon: fast, graceful, and frightening. Where you would block with the broadsword, you dodge with the straight sword; where you would slam, you slice; where you would charge, you circle or sidestep. However, unlike the sabre, the sword is never allowed to cut above the crown of the head for a variety of reasons. For example, you wouldn’t want to sever your connection with the Yang energy of Heaven, would you? Of course, a pragmatic dullard might also think that doing this makes it less likely that you will accidentally scalp yourself while swinging the bloody thing. On the other hand, let me add that competent internal swordsmen will use some movements that make it superﬁcially look as if the sword has gone over the head. However, if you examine the posture carefully you will see that the wielder has actually swung his arm and the hilt and blunt part of the lower blade over his head and not the edged part of the blade. To the casual observer there is not much apparent difference, but the wielder is less likely to cut or hit himself with the sword in this way. To be effective, you must connect your blade, not the edge, to the opponent’s and then use the weight and movement of your body to simultaneously deﬂect his blade and affect his balance. This should create an immediate opportunity to slice the wrist or arm that holds the sword to literally “disarm” him or her prior to a ﬁnishing stroke, if such is necessary. While it is sometimes okay to trade blows with an unarmed opponent if you have a better target, it is never so with edged weapons. You must evade, parry, or block every attack, and your opponent likewise. This sword form looks best when done by someone agile and tall with long arms. It can be practised with beneﬁt by anyone, and is particularly suited to women and smaller men, as it relies on speed and precision rather than weight. However, using the sword (or two in this case) is not easy, especially if one strives to develop real skill, as opposed to doing a form. It is very demanding of a supple wrist that is really connected to the waist and feet. As to weight and stiffness of the blade—I am afraid that heavier is better when attempting to replicate realistic combat skills, as opposed to the light weapons used in wu-shu perfor-

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mance skills-oriented forms. The people who enter competitions have weapons with blades bending like tinfoil. The lighter the weapon, the faster they can move, and they don’t have to worry about striking armour or another better quality sword.… I have also read and been told by more than one instructor that the intensive study of the sword is an excellent way to both health and enlightenment in the long run. I went through a long period of time in which I had little interest in weapons training of any kind; but now I derive a great deal of satisfaction from the forms I practise. Certainly, the sword has been imbued with a spiritual quality in many societies—both Western and Oriental. I am sure Sigmund Freud would have something to say about the signiﬁcance of swords to men, but then again he seems to have been more than a little obsessed with the penis himself ! Training Tips: • Although it appears otherwise, you must never move both swords at exactly the same time in any of the postures, as one blade will be defending, parrying, blocking, or sticking the attacker’s weapon while the other cuts the attacker. • When thrusting, it is customary to keep the blade ﬂat when attacking the upper part of the body, so that the blade can slip between the ribs and not get stopped by bone, only inﬂicting a superﬁcial wound. • When defending, the knee joints are also useful targets, as the attacker would have trouble hurting you if he cannot walk properly or stand on two feet anymore. • Blocking is normally done with both weapons against a heavier or longer weapon, and you will try to use the last half of the blades of your weapons to do so, as that would be the thickest, strongest parts of real swords.

DEER HORN KNIVES
These weapons, also called Crescent Swords or Mandarin Duck Knives, are always used in pairs.They are short-range martial tools especially designed to disarm the opponent and be effective against a variety of types of long and short traditional weapons. One of the ﬁght scenes in the recent kung-fu epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shows a ﬁght scene between one of the villains and a bounty hunter who uses a pair of these weapons. Deer Horn Knives come in a variety of sizes. The ones used in Erle’s form are of the rarer Bei-jing variation with one of the forward prongs twice as long as the other. They can be used for thrusting as well as locking and cutting. At the basic level, you block or check the attackers’s weapon with one of yours while counter-attacking with the other. Using this weapon properly also requires that ideally you attack the opponent’s hand which is holding the weapon, rather than just making contact blade on blade. Of course, this requires that your appreciation of timing and distance must be much better than your opponent’s. The knives are difﬁcult for an opponent to wrestle from your grip, as there are four points and seven edges in seemingly every direction near the handle. This means also that they can

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cut the wielder as well as the opponent. In one motion, the back hook may block a weapon while the front hook strikes, followed by a ripping cut from one of the edges. As the knife is withdrawn, the other hooks on it may slash through the area of ﬁrst contact. I have had the chance over the years to see and handle two pairs of these weapons. One set was a reproduction of an antique pair, handmade by a metalworker who collected antique Chinese weapons. The other pair were supposed to be antiques from the turn of the century. Neither pair were identical in design to each other or to the ones we have and use in my classes. Both pairs seemed well-balanced and potentially lethal. Neither of them had sharpened edges on the two short prongs that protect the wielder’s hand, and neither of those prongs had sharp tips, which makes sense from the premise of protecting the hands holding the weapons. Erle Montaigue states that the originals used for the form he teaches had points and edges everywhere, but told me that one can use the ones without the sharp edges for safety reasons. However, once one becomes proﬁcient, it is a ﬁnal test of your ability to do the form properly using the knives with all sharpened edges. Erle’s solo form is an excellent example of how a weapon form can be demanding and simple all at the same time. I recommend it highly to those who have some skill and interest in developing a bagua weapon. Training Tips: • It is very difﬁcult to use these weapons at ﬁrst if you don’t have very strong and ﬂexible wrists and elbows, and many of the postures demand a great deal of precision to avoid hitting yourself in the hands and the head while practising. I have given myself some nasty cuts with the blunt metal weapons that I practise with, as have the three students who are learning this set from me. • The applications are often quite simple if you have the requisite bagua body mechanics. One of the keys to effective application is to remember that you will often try to stick and check the attacker’s weapon with one of yours while trying to slide up his weapon to cut his hand and trying to get a vital target with the other knife. • These weapons are very good for taking off heads, and I am told that this was the tactic of preference in the old days—block or evade, and use one or both blades (in a scissoring action) to cut off the head, or, at the very least, slice through the neck. The other characteristic use of this weapon is to trap a blade between the two front prongs, and by twisting your knife suddenly wrench the weapon out of the other person’s grip or, if that fails, immobilise the weapon for the moment that it takes you to counter-attack with your other knife.

CONCLUSION
While these solo and application sets have little functional role in self-defence in the modern age of guns and biological weapons, they remain important tools for reﬁning your understanding of bagua, and they can also be a lot of fun to practise. You remember having fun, don’t you?

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Particularly for more advanced practitioners who have become a little complacent about their skill levels.…
. and remember my mother’s advice from the section in Chapter Five on defending against knives. Oh. learning to use these weapons can be a way of exploring subtle aspects of the training. and of discovering how little you really know about the big picture of the traditional martial arts.

In theory. rather than having the attention of the chief instructor. Of course.Chapter Eight
Teaching and Ethics
The instructors I have met over the years whom I respect the most have said that their art has to keep growing and changing to remain anything beyond a museum piece. the ﬂip side of this issue is that most teachers don’t have the skills. It is also true that those who learn in traditional clubs with large group classes will be learning mostly from senior students. This is not an easy way to learn as the quality of teaching will vary from senior student to senior student. and your interest in teaching is of less relevance than the wishes of the chief instructor. in some more traditional bagua environments you will be expected to teach as part of the long-term learning process. If you don’t want to be a coach for those junior to you in the student body. But. or personal genius to bring anything new and valuable to any aspect of the traditional curriculums without ruining what came before. before he or she begins to do so. a good teacher will assign coaching roles only to those apprentice instructors with the requisite skills and will be present at most of the classes if needed. you should be able to say “No. Everyone has to start somewhere on every journey. in a more modern bagua environment you may have to decide if you want to teach. this also implies that the students you teach a decade or two down the road will get better instruction than those you taught at the beginning of your career.
. the ones he ﬁrst made were probably still pretty damn good. but the variety in itself can be stimulating to the inquiring student with a drive to understand which of these lesser role models is on track for any particular topic. Consequently. Sadly. experience. if it is of any consolation to those who realise that they were the early students of a particular teacher. thanks!” without repercussions. Similarly. a teacher should be an expert in what he or she is teaching. it is equally true that teaching can make a good practitioner and teacher even better with time. Conversely. I am sure that even though Stradivari was producing superior violins at the end of his career. both theoretically and practically. However.

this is rarely the case. the less time there is for them to develop skills at any one thing in one or two hours a week of class time. teaching can teach the teacher many valuable lessons about his or her own understanding of the art. you wouldn’t have dared to teach without the permission of a respected. It is always courteous to ask your teacher if you have his or her permission to start classes on your own. It is also tempting to simplify the material to make it more accessible to a larger number of students.
WHAT AND HOW YOU TEACH
The longer I teach. not to mention the few ﬁtful moments of practice that most of them will do on their own. Unless you are fortunate enough to be under the supervision of a competent instructor in a group of some size and quality. even though most students (especially the ones with aptitude) will get bored with these fundamentals before realising how important they are. Seriously though. less is more—the larger the curriculum (especially for beginners). but. there are lots of things to consider: teaching yet another group of beginners who don’t look as if they can lift the TV remote control. It is one thing is to be able to do a form or training method. this should be resisted. it is essential to realise that in teaching the principles and methods to your students. in general. quite another—to explain and demonstrate your performance in such a way that you help someone else along the same path you have followed. long-term instructor. Deciding that you are ready and want to start teaching is one thing. let’s assume that you have put in your time as a beginner and intermediate level student. and after 3–5 years you have some experience helping your instructor to coach the newer students. cheats the students of the potential of this great discipline. For many reasons today. (Being ignored from then on as part of his or her “martial arts family” is the mildest and most common. there is also the issue of often having to create your own training partners to be able to practise the two-person methods and forms. in the long run. maintaining your enthusiasm when only one or two students bother to make an appearance at a group class.
. as it does nothing for the art and.) It also makes sense to be part of a larger organisation to be seen as legitimate by potential students although the bagua/Chinese internal arts world is full of fascinating loners as well. the more I realise that teaching and reteaching the basics is essential for most students. having spent much time teaching basics to others. In the old days. Whoops! Those were some of the many reasons not to teach.120
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SHOULD YOU TEACH?
So. though courtesy seems to be a dying art and politically incorrect these days. adjusting to being the role model instead of a student is another. As a teaching novice. much less balance brieﬂy on one leg. and you ﬁnd that you have some interest or aptitude for teaching on your own—with or without your teacher’s formal blessing. However. either during class or after. trying to ﬁnd the time and energy to practise for yourself. Failing to do so with a more traditionally-minded teacher can have repercussions.

In some ways. Don’t bend over backwards to be accommodating to them. as most beginners want to feel that they are being supervised and led. as they can move from one level of form practice to another without
. whether you are a novice or experienced instructor. It is important to structure your classes. some who have those breakthroughs will hang onto the experience and use it to transform their performance from then on. this also means that the teacher must remember the basic ways of doing the various forms and not just move on to whatever level he or she is ready for and forget the material that is no longer relevant to their level of expertise. (You never know when you will be attacked by someone on horseback!) Few in any group of beginners will bother to practise what little they learn—let alone make the effort necessary to advance to the deeper aspects of the art—outside of the formal class times. the breakthrough will fade almost immediately. Progress is always an individual matter. It is not easy to predict how quickly a particular student will make progress. It is not easy to decide whether or not a student should learn in stages or “thrown into the water.” As with any peak performance. In fact. nowadays most students—even the better ones—will feel herculean in their dedication if they come to class three times a week for about an hour. or the tendency to stand around when not being supervised as it often happens in group classes. As long as it is done with courtesy and common sense. Unfortunately. It is important to “show off ” to the students once in a while to remind them that you still have some “value added” and to provide the visual stimulus some students on the edge of a big breakthrough will need to suddenly “get it. In this light. the majority of adult students respond best to structure and gentle discipline.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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In the good old days students often studied with their teacher every day before going to work or in the evening after work. structure is not a dirty word unless you become too rigid in how you run your classes—aside from the basics.” It is true that the occasional exceptional student will be best served by being taught in detail right from the beginning. However. a little variety in how the classes are run from month to month can be a good thing. not left to practise on their own. With others. remember that the people in your classes are supposed to be there to take your advice if only for the hour or so you teach them. and those making the comments are usually pleased with this difference. I have often been told that there is a great deal of structure to my classes compared to other kung-fu classes that the beginner may have done elsewhere. there is a common hidden agenda with Western students who expect that paying you will entitle them to have a say in the way they are taught! This applies particularly to private students who are able to afford the extra cost and are probably used to manipulating those around with their greater buying power. Some students can come to class obsessively and still make little progress while others make the most of one or two hours of class time per week. or to humour their idle chitchat. life is simpler for those who don’t teach. which need a lot of attention. providing only proof that it is possible for them to fa-jing or do a leaping kick. it is equally true that the majority of students have to learn to crawl before they walk—much less run! Of course.

There should be no need to be a Master to get the respect of the students that you want to keep. the language issue helps to explain why the level of bagua practice in the ﬁrst few decades of it being introduced to non-Chinese in North America and Europe was relatively low. You can’t please every potential student. You even have to think twice about socialising with them too much. teaching what you know is one of the best ways of improving your understanding of the material and deepening it—so it is worth the effort and frustration for a few years at the very least. Some of the old-time relationship between teacher and student was feudal and abusive. after ﬁve or ten years. although I have been criticised for it on occasion—some beginners want and expect their instructor to be solemn. Oh. it is important to get to know your students before you start “laying on hands” to reposition them manually when trying to teach abdominal breathing or how to use their bodies properly. and don’t get discouraged or take it personally if you have almost no one left after the ﬁrst few weeks you start a class. in case they misinterpret or try to use the relationship to their advantage. and it is important to discourage such emotional dependence. There is very little demand for quality internal arts of any kind. you can assume that something is wrong with the curriculum. and not be the sole property of the instructor who may be relying on his personal genius and experience to make dubious material work. In fact. and it is usually well-received. I use a lot of humour while teaching.
. I don’t think it is ever appropriate to date or be intimate with your students). and I no longer try! It is essential. On the positive side. Any good approach should be transmittable to at least a few people. There are always groupies in any teaching relationship.e.. In terms of physical teaching style. or see smiles and hear laughter even though they are working hard. one way of judging the quality of the teacher is observing their bagua group training—if none of the long-term students have any real skill despite the teacher having desirable qualities. Sometimes. and some who are less talented as practitioners are very good at coaching others to excellence.122
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having to remember or practise the difference between the form they do now. which can leave the client open to emotional or physical abuse (i. some will enjoy it a little too much. on the other hand. to develop your own style of teaching. Don’t forget that they need you more than you need them. The teachers spoke poor or indifferent English and were unable to easily explain the subtleties of the art to those who were not Chinese. and the form they were taught as a beginners. in the long run. conversely. Many people are uncomfortable with any touching. it is also easy to allow those you teach to treat you too casually. The real reward comes from those times when you watch a group of your students and notice magic in their movements. It is also true that some talented practitioners are useless as instructors through lack of teaching or verbal skills. In particular. watching your students ﬂounder is a powerful reminder that you may not have “got it” quite as much as you think.

if you try to get a study group going where you work but there is no ﬁtness centre available there. the danger is that some men will confuse what she is offering with what men often want from an unknown woman who invites them into her house. or perhaps for very small groups but rarely appropriate for large group classes or for attracting beginners who. They quickly realise how hard it is to keep up if they miss class frequently and give up and drop out. or snowy weather—so I can hardly complain when my students don’t! In my experience. However. freezing. Finally. but weather is often a factor that can severely limit outside training time in many parts of the world for month after dreary month. It is very distracting to do as I have done and hold your classes in the foyer of a large building (listening to vacuuming after hours is no fun) or in a boardroom full of furniture that has to be moved out of the way for each class and replaced when it is over! Teaching in your home. Conversely. I don’t practise outside in hot and humid. wet. rightly or wrongly. Oh. as well as insurance liability for paying customers coming to your residence. Also. in the ﬁrst case at
. in such a distracting environment. or using noisy ﬁtness machines while you are trying to teach. like bagua forms. In addition. that must be learned sequentially. coming and going. For a woman instructor. it can be hard to schedule a suitable space for a bagua class. If you have suitable free space.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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WHERE YOU TEACH
Traditionally. or work through lunch or late into the evening. is very difﬁcult to teach or learn when students miss a lot of classes. is a very traditional way of giving lessons. as there is often no fresh air. It is very difﬁcult to teach even the basics of qigong and walking the circle. if you have the space. other members talking. and a broken table lamp is good for several hours of hot tongue and cold shoulder. teaching at home is ideal for private classes. lots of loud music. Teaching out of your home also makes it harder to attract female students who understandably may be reluctant to come to a man’s residence and possibly be alone with a stranger. let alone forms and partner work. you may ﬁnd it impossible to teach the weapons forms from lack of space to swing the weapons freely. such as whether you live in an area that is zoned to allow such activities in a residence. and it used to be considered an honour to be invited to teacher’s house for studies. parks were used as training grounds. once you know the student. This also brings up practical issues. catering to them slows the learning and frustrates those who make the effort to come to class regularly. assume that someone competent will have a more commercial location. Church halls or community centres are sometimes affordable and/or available on weekends free of charge if you are teaching on a not-for-proﬁt basis. the worst places to teach tend to be ﬁtness centres in government or big business complexes. My wife used to take a very dim view of what my broadsword did to the ceiling of my training room while I was learning and teaching that weapon. Anything. many workers have good intentions about attending noon-hour or after-hours programs. but then soon discover that they must attend last-minute meetings.

and qigong as being somehow the tools of Satan. and that they don’t have to bring any physical abilities or enthusiasm to their classes in order to make progress.
. only four remained at the end of ten weeks. As to starting your own school from scratch. I am not trying to be discouraging. Taxes. and very few will bother to make the necessary effort or will ﬁnd that they don’t enjoy the training and will go elsewhere to ﬁnd other disciplines that suit their physique and nature better. ministers. taiji. Don’t take it personally when people drop out or seem half-hearted. duller student who goes the distance and ends up learning something of real value. but the slower. And that is okay too. a surprising number of priests. you will have to rent out space at your school to those teaching other complimentary disciplines (yoga. other martial arts) to supplement your income. and improve. be prepared ﬁnancially to live off your cash reserves (if you have any left after paying for premises and renovations) for at least one year. By the way. Martial arts documentaries on television or movie fantasies don’t do bagua teachers any favours by showing elderly Chinese people practising bagua in the park. or you will burn out physically or emotionally from trying to earn a living. For example. and only three of more then ten in attendance on the ﬁrst night were used to regular physical activity or had ever seen bagua done at any level. qigong. as is often the case. but you cannot appreciate being a teacher until you have done it with some dedication and suffered some of the arrows that come with trying to do so as a supplement to your income or as its sole source. I have also learned the hard way that it is more difﬁcult than it seems to guess correctly which of the beginners will persevere. as the average viewer forgets that an elderly person makes it look easy because he or she has been doing it daily for years! Conversely. mullahs and rabbis feel that their ﬂock may be tainted spiritually by doing bagua because of its connection to Buddhism and Taoism. Most did not know it was done quickly and was physically demanding. teaching endless groups of beginners or having to do endless private classes may result in you ﬁnding that you no longer have the enthusiasm for this art you once had. and there was only one class per week. dance. More than once over the years I have read articles by fundamental Christian and Muslims denouncing the practice of bagua. Studying bagua is not easy.
WHOM YOU TEACH
It is amazing how many people think that learning bagua or the internal martial arts of any kind is easy. even though each class only lasted one hour. advertising costs and ofﬁce expenses will quickly demand that you either commercialise your teaching to ensure the numbers of students necessary to support such an establishment. and continue their training. I did a survey at the ﬁrst introductory bagua group class I ever taught at a community centre. Sometimes it is not the one with lots of aptitude who seems so enthusiastic in the ﬁrst few classes.124
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least. A few students along the way will blossom. It will take you some time to develop your own rhythm and style as a teacher of this discipline. and most will either coast or drop out. Not surprisingly. or.

So. teaching at noon-hour in a ﬁtness centre is more likely to attract those used to regular exercise as well as those looking for stress reduction. weight lifters or modern hard style martial artists unless you can get them to give it a real try and convince them that bagua can be a useful supplement to other training—and not a replacement. Having pride in what you practise or teach is one thing.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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In some ways. it is very difﬁcult to sell the value of standing still and circular movement to aerobics fanatic.
. Let me add that one of my continuing disappointments with the experienced practitioners and teachers I meet is how arrogant they all seem to be about what they are doing. or not so subtle.… Some of the experienced practitioners you meet or who observe your class will be coldly polite. on a bad day. as many Chinese instructors and would-be students will assume that you can not be any good just because you are not Chinese. However. By the way. win or lose. Especially if you are advertising yourself as a martial arts instructor. asked pointed questions. you have to be ready to make some kind of demonstration of skill on occasion. though I might well be wrong in that assumption. Qigong and the Chinese internal systems tend to attract people with severe problems of one sort or another. made snide comments about what I was teaching. It has happened to me three times in nineteen years of teaching and. some friendly. even for the simpler health-oriented methods. you have to be careful and considerate of people with special physical needs. and many of them either want miracles from you or are unable to cope with the physical movements. On several occasions such people have come and watched critically. You have to play it by ear in your dealings with them. some aloof. it is not a pleasant experience. but still happens.
OBSERVERS
Most people who watch a bagua class will know nothing or next to nothing about competency in it or the related internal disciplines. However. rather than teach them methods that may worsen their lives. be prepared! I must admit that I can understand the thought processes behind this even though they are galling. but mustn’t cater to them so much that it is unfair to the others without such limitations. physical challenge to martial ability. This is much rarer than it used be. As a French Canadian. both good and bad. if I took my son to a hockey school in which the coach was Chinese and could barely speak French or English. I might prejudge his ability to skate and play hockey. It is important to be honest and sometimes blunt with beginners—you are not a miracle or counselling service and. but feeling that there is nothing of value elsewhere is another. you will occasionally face hostile observers—particularly those who are adherents of other teachers. Unfortunately. This usually meant a subtle. or have challenged me physically. It is worth repeating that you should steer the acutely ill to a competent Western or qigong doctor. some people are not up to the challenge physically if they are badly out of shape or have acute or chronic medical conditions. many non-Chinese will also make the same judgment. in the old days it was common enough for teachers to send a senior student to test the waters with a new teacher in the area. On a good day you will just laugh them off. You must also come to terms with racism. Conversely.

and they all looked more than a little surprised. and I did what Erle had done in my presence during his ﬁrst workshop in Ottawa some years before (but not with the same authority) and let this man hit me in the unprotected torso. it is easier to teach for the love of it. Others are seduced to the Dark Side (at the risk of sounding melodramatic) and end up teaching because of the ﬁnancial rewards and ego gratiﬁcation of playing the master. which is what I had hoped. it is also true that bagua can be many things to many people and that helping the out-of-shape to rediscover the pleasure and beneﬁt of regular physical activity can bring almost as much satisfaction as teaching someone how to defend themselves against a variety of attacks. and asked to be led through some basics and the rest of the hour was pleasant enough. The sentiment seems to be that a good teacher will happily teach anyone who wants lessons for the pure joy of instruction.… I had the sinking feeling that this was not heading in a friendly direction and decided to brass it out by inviting the one who had called me to hit me.126
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Speaking of such situations: years ago when I ﬁrst started teaching bagua. many are driven to teach for all the wrong reasons and burn out as instructors. I had a fellow who identiﬁed himself as a local black belt in karate call my school and ask if he could come to watch a class. Sadly. few in any group of students will bother to practise what little they learn—much less make the physical effort necessary to advance to the deeper aspects of the art.
. in some ways. Many students will not take you seriously unless they feel that they have to get their money’s worth out of you. They never came back and I later found out that the fellow who had hit me was teaching what they called bagua at their local karate/martial arts school. they were suddenly more friendly. However. as is often the case (another Babin’s axiom). On the other hand. He let it ﬂy. practising on my own when my visitor shows up with two young friends in tow—all three wearing their karate gi and black belts under their coats. It is also true that in the beginning. as his Master also taught bagua and taiji. or to share what little you know if you can do it for free while earning your living in a 9–to–5 job.
FRUSTRATIONS & REWARDS
Teaching can also be counterproductive if you lower your standards in order to make a larger proﬁt. anyway) against instructors who charge for their lessons. I said. and often as practitioners. There is quite a strong prejudice (in North America. I smiled at the impact. “Sure!” And. when his appointment rolled around. for your efforts. landlord. I told him that I would block the attack in an bagua-like manner without retaliating so that he would give it his best in the assumption that I would be blocking in some way. not one of my ﬁve students showed up that evening for class! So there I was. The taxman. and those who provide my Studio phone line have a different opinion—as does my wife—so I don’t think that there is anything wrong with charging reasonable fees for your services. After that demo. After introducing themselves they stood there glowering at me as I did the circular form and then asked to see some applications. and even fewer will have any real aptitude or drive to excel.

Self-control is very important. little attention or class time is usually devoted to the dayto-day implications of these lofty aims—or. despite all these caveats. It takes more patience and hard work and less words. Ultimately. I would strongly advise not to intellectualise the art. to put it bluntly. and go on the road many weekends or weeks per year. Fighting is something natural for the human being.… You can practise as a group. “talk is cheap. In a way. but the whole idea is very personal. However.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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Many commercially successful masters are abusing their students ﬁnancially and earn a very good living while providing relatively little in return to them. 2001. I do believe that teaching—whether it is on a oneto-one basis or in groups—is essential for a while in the same way that structure is essential. but it is important that teacher also teaches how to avoid ﬁghting. but in the end both may become limiting. and learning how to use your skills in combat is part of the traditional Kung-fu. but the real practice is what is important. “Why am I doing this?” However. which refers to a code of conduct that restrains and controls the practitioner when applying the martial abilities gained through training. SECRETS OF INTERNAL KUNG-FU. Which brings us to the next topic—martial virtue! I will ﬁnish with the wisdom of an old-timer in the internal tradition that has remained with me since I ﬁrst read it—how true it seemed to the spirit of teaching: I see myself as a guide. I am just a tool for my students to know how to teach and share the knowledge according to the student’s speciﬁcations and abilities. it is very hard to be patient with the obvious lack of practice or having to correct the same mistakes in the same person for the hundredth time. Wu-de is an often neglected aspect of modern classes in the internal arts although teachers often talk of using their qigong practice for a variety of spiritual and/or meditative purposes. it implies a balanced approach to incorporating physical and energetic aspects to one’s training. —Li Jian Yu. Nowadays. Kung-fu can be intellectualised. May Issue. For example. This is different from Martial Virtue (Wu-de). the only good reason to teach is to help you grow as a practitioner while helping your students ﬁnd a path that can bring them better physical health and greater emotional and spiritual maturity. This days (sic) many people think only about ﬁghting. and I think to myself.
MARTIAL VIRTUE
Martial Ability (Wu-gong) refers to training and experience in external or internal martial arts. This can have unforeseen effects on family life—the divorce rate is high among martial arts teachers because of the long evening hours away from home and the temptations offered by groupies. as they feel abandoned and left to their own devices more and more frequently. This also tends to alienate the better students of the teacher’s main school. some excellent teachers with thriving schools will become popular on the workshop trail—do a few. realise how much money is to be made. Each student should move at this pace. There are other days when everything aches in my middle-aged carcass.” This is partly
. by learning how to ﬁght we also learn the value of not ﬁghting. In some classes.

On the other hand. You must also remember to respect those around you in your daily life and not abuse any martial skill that you do develop. in the same way that the average knight in the Middle Ages was as far as possible from the idealised nature of the Age of Chivalry. Loyalty. It must have aspects of co-operation to be done safely and to the mutual beneﬁt of all concerned. There are many examples in Chinese popular ﬁction going back decades— even centuries—of Robin Hood type warrior ascetics whose kung-fu skills were as highly developed as their social conscience. With martial skill comes responsibility—both on an ethical and legal level. Fortunately. as a teacher. Respect is a two-way street and must be given as well as received. Sometimes a teacher must allow such students a little leeway at ﬁrst or treat them harshly when they act out. and as a person. Loyalty. if you cannot respect them as individuals. You have to be careful that you don’t copy the bad with the good over the months and years. It is another question how often the real experts lived up to this lofty ideal. as the kind of person who gravitates to the active life of martial training is often the least likely to want to stand or sit quietly. a substantial proportion of beginners have some expectation that their teacher will be like the venerable chief monk on the old kung-fu television series. and the classes and the training will be exotic and mysterious—and not just hard work with the occasional bruise or injury. It is easy to abuse your new-found health and martial abilities and become a little too much like those who may have picked on you before your training. and that of the teacher or style you follow. We often become more like those we respect than we may be willing to acknowledge. If you already feel that you know as much as him or her. to teach the valuable lesson. as egos often come into play when people train together. this is often difﬁcult. I feel that it is essential to instil values in your training that are worthy of inspection from the perspective of any good ethical system or religion. Humility and Integrity. Respect is not easy to achieve or maintain and. you must respect the art you want to learn as well as your teacher as a practitioner.128
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practical from the perspective of the average teacher. Martially. Despite this. Honesty. Sadly. in traditional view. It is also important to remember that the martial artist was the subject of hero worship in his homeland. you can still learn a great deal. and the teacher literally assumed the role of an adoptive parent with the unques-
. to a Chinese martial arts teacher was expected to be unconditional. You must also respect your training partners in class so that you approach each session as being a learning experience. May I suggest that the key concepts of martial ethics are Respect. It is particularly true for those younger men who approached the martial arts because they were fearful or had been victimised by bullies or criminals. this is largely irrelevant to whether or not there is a code of ethics in your own practice. on a core level. and their egos are tender in terms of “loss of face” or of appearing stupid. it will be very difﬁcult to understand the subtleties that often deﬁne the difference between a competent technician and a master practitioner. many people who approach the martial arts initially do so out of fear.

good white practitioners will often get bestowed a Chinese name by their Chinese teachers. It is a ﬁne balancing act to remain loyal both to your own needs and to those of the person teaching you. For example. reconcile those needs with what you can realistically achieve through your training. but are essential aspects of being mature—no matter what your biological age—and. Oh. However. essential aspects of developing self-defence skills. despite being born white or black. and they may be there because the school is convenient to their home or ofﬁce or affordable. sexual. partly as a mark of distinction and partly because it will be easier for the Chinese to say than the original name. Such a concept is hard for Westerners to digest and has largely disappeared from modern schools. they may want to learn something supposedly good for the health that they imagine doesn’t take much effort. Loyalty is very much a double-edged sword in the sense that a practitioner is hardly liable to make the most of their training if they constantly hop from teacher to teacher. Strange how many North American kung-fu types insist on being called by an Oriental name or title. The average student may be taking classes because they need to ﬁll a void in their social life. It should not be confused with the media obsession of speaking out on every personal subject and former taboo in the name of being open. The teacher must be honest with the student. they may be looking for martial and/or performance skills. Some do so for the money to be made
. with him or herself ! On a simple level this can extend to the most mundane details. but still can often be found in schools with an older Chinese teacher. we have to take the kids out!” or “That workshop clashes with the holiday we talked about taking in the summer. and what you are willing to sacriﬁce in order to make progress. Colorado in the mid-90s to be in Erle Montaigue’s video on Dim-mak for Paladin Press. it is equally true that a student must at the same time remain loyal to himself and to his family or society.” Compromise and negotiation are difﬁcult skills to learn. this is different from conferring a Chinese name on yourself to sound more authentic. or egotistical reasons. and the student must be honest with his or her teacher and. Some unscrupulous teachers will not hesitate to exploit unquestioning obedience for ﬁnancial. As a student. or if they feel no sense of connection to what is being taught and to the person teaching them. Only you can know what you want from your training. However. On the other hand. you need to identify what you want from your training. It is also important to realise that the teacher may have as much trouble as you do identifying what he or she wants from being an instructor. perhaps the hardest of all. when I went to Boulder. Honesty is an elusive quality in modern life and seems to have gone out of fashion in many ways. the editor we were dealing with mentioned over breakfast one morning that not one of their popular authors of self-defence texts with Chinese names was actually Asian. Physical conﬂict should be a viable last resort and not your ﬁrst choice in settling disputes. and communicate those expectations to your teacher. if you think about it.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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tioned obedience implied in their culture. and you have to remember to remain loyal to your family and friends as well and not ignore their complaints: “You are always away at class!” or “Do you have to train now.

you ﬁnd a wallet with a great deal of cash and go to the effort of returning it to the owner. Your friends or family will look at you incredulously because you didn’t accept a reward for its return. responsibility for all your actions. some from a desire to be in the spotlight. and both are getting something from the relationship. but just stay true to whatever value system your parents raised you with. rather than how it is similar to what you have done before. it is never too late to learn. and more than a few will think you are stupid for having returned it at all. As long as the teacher is honest with the student. teaching should beneﬁt the students on many levels—each according to his or her capacity and needs—and not just stroke the ego of the teacher or ﬁll his pockets with money. This is not to say that you should try to become some perfect or mythic ﬁgure. and martial artists in particular!
. in understanding a new method or style it is often more productive to try and identify how is is different. and vice versa. and the wording is often very similar. and some just like to be in charge. Perhaps. I remember my elderly mother watching a video of a martial arts show where I and some of my students had demonstrated bagua in the mid-90s. those students who already have some skills may well concentrate on trying to ﬁnd the similarities between what they already think they know and with what they are presently studying. the loss of this kind of innocence is what keeps most instructors from fulﬁlling their real potentials as human being and as instructors. neither should have any real reason to complain. It is very difﬁcult to become an expert if you already feel that there is little more that you can learn from anyone else! Integrity is something that has largely gone out of style in modern society. respect for others. “Why are you going in circles? That looks stupid!” Beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder. As I have said before. In particular.” Good advice for people in general. Oh. and in the long run. These are all normal motives for teaching. Her comment was. Human nature is human nature. It is perhaps even more important for the teacher to remain humble despite his or her technical skills and experience. those who choose to teach baguazhang (or any martial art) have a greater burden than those who are content to follow. and most people will no longer value the rare examples still to be found. And if they didn’t. Ideally. You are not likely to learn anything if you already feel that you know it all. For example. some teach from a genuine need to share whatever skills they may have. It is hard not to keep some perspective on your skills and the relative value of your training when you are periodically reminded that the sun doesn’t shine out of your nether regions.” This excellent advice occurs in every major religion I have studied.130
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from teaching commercially. Start with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Morality has no value in a consumer society whose heroes are large corporations or ﬁnancial institutions who seem to function on socially dubious or fraudulent practices. Although it has nothing to do with martial training (or does it?). Humility is only problematic if you don’t have any. I also like the advice the Dalai Lama gave in his speech on the subject of the millennium in the year 2000: “Follow the three R’s: Respect for self.

however. there would be even fewer practitioners around than there are!
. If those were the only reasons to practise and teach bagua. Learning to be a good teacher of bagua is like anything else in life: you have to be patient.TEACHING AND ETHICS
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CONCLUSION
The longer I teach. teach only privately or in small groups and don’t try to make a lot of money teaching such classes. As I mentioned before. and students paid by their loyalty and effort more than in cash or kind. Certainly. within reason. and you may eventually have to consider taking a sabbatical from teaching group classes to focus on your own training and working with one or two students as training partners for the martial methods. the more mixed feelings I have about being a bagua instructor. and probably in the past. it is also important to remember that being a great martial artist is not worth a pinch of poop in the grand scheme of things. and that few people will really care or remember your sterling qualities as a teacher or a person when you are gone. Getting back momentarily to humility. it is equally true that teaching can be a noticeable drag on your personal time and energy. it is because in the traditional approach classes were held informally in the parks or temples. the longer I teach. the more I understand why the best teachers currently. with people’s foibles and teach them to the best of your ability all the time. teaching is a necessary evil. Perhaps.

I have always preferred to study martial arts that have “usefulness. there is no formula that will make everyone happy. It is also tempting. I might also suggest. to see the common ground that unites any of these practices on a meditative and spiritual level. some martial historians link the origins of circular patterns in this art to religious and meditative practices that are still used by some Taoist religious sects. if you cannot ﬁnd a good bagua teacher whose classes you can attend regularly. called rather crassly whirling dervishes by the popular Western media. In recent years. then you are probably better off studying with a live teacher in any good martial discipline you can ﬁnd and practising circle walking as a moving qigong.Final Words
Life is too short to spend time and effort training in something that is not as functional as it was designed to be. when watching a demonstration of the meditative circling dances of the Suﬁ Muslims. Persevering in the study of bagua. and even the most cynical might see the common thread in entering meditative state by walking the maze or walking the circle. In fact. that it is very difﬁcult to do circle walking well on any level unless you have had well-rounded instruction from a qualiﬁed expert. In any case. to further confuse the issue. much less against one who also had some technical skills in ﬁghting. the traditional Christian religious practice of “walking the maze” while praying has become popular again. or any aspect of that discipline. And. there are rarely any easy answers or short cuts that are worth taking. it is also true that you can practise bagua circle walking for health purposes on many levels. is very much a microcosm of life. unfortunately. as in life. or if you have tried self-instruction from videos and it has not worked for you.
. So what is the answer? I could suggest that one answer is looking for a balanced approach to your training.” However. Sadly. most modern bagua stylists I have met wouldn’t have much hope using their art for self-defence against a determined aggressor. But. The other side of the dilemma is that too much ﬁghting is hard on the body past a certain age and not necessarily good for the soul. Finding an approach that honestly suits your individual needs is another.

and both are worth pouring your heart and soul into!
. but thinking about the subject in a critical manner is essential for maximizing the physical aspect of your practice on any level. I trust that at least some of what you have read will be useful to your training. You don’t have to agree with or understand everything I wrote. Neither are easy.133
Thank you for having read through this little book. Good luck with your training and with life.

Yang Ywing Ming. I taught my own taiji classes. I decided to abandon almost everything I had been practising and teaching to start anew from his videos and workshops on both Taijiquan and Baguazhang. Each one in their own way helped me realise that I still didn’t know as much as I had hoped and assumed. After ﬁve years of teaching. By 1980. a few of the questions are starting to make sense.About the Author
I began studying Japanese and Chinese hard martial styles in the early 1970s and started learning Yang Style Taijiquan in 1975 with a succession of local instructors. Canadian Martial Arts. wrote articles for the martial arts and taiji magazines (including Tongren. For the next few years. Karate/Kung Fu Illustrated. and attended workshops and training camps given by such experts as the late Eric Chew. and since then I have taught classes in that art. Australasian Fighting Arts. and Official Karate). Sam Masich. a student of the late Lee Shiu Pak. co-authored with Erle Montaigue. Chen. This is my ﬁrst offering on this discipline although I have written or co-written three published books. Liang Shouyu.C. Eric Tuttle. William C. One of these. but.
. Both taiji texts were published by Paladin Press in the mid-1990s. Erle certiﬁed me as competent to teach his approach to Baguazhang in 1994. T’ai Chi. As a result of that experience. thanks to Erle and the other bagua instructors who have inﬂuenced me along the way. and Carol Mancuso. Many years later. he certiﬁed me as an instructor in 1985. is still in print and available for sale at
http://www. I was sure I knew it all. Black Belt. I still don’t have any answers. In particular. Power Taiji. and he very kindly shattered all illusions I had about both my level of understanding of Yang Style Taijiquan and my martial expertise. Combat & Healing. Then I met Allan Weiss.paladin-press. Inside Kung Fu.com. I had been corresponding with Erle Montaigue for some time and invited him in 1990 to do a workshop in Ottawa during his ﬁrst tour of North America.